Definition – A maximum price occurs when a government sets a legal limit on the price of a good or service – with the aim of reducing prices below the market equilibrium price. For example, the government may set a maximum price of bread of £1 – or a maximum price of a weekly rent …
The fundamental economic problem is the issue of scarcity but unlimited wants. Scarcity implies there is only a limited quantity of resources, e.g. finite fossil fuels. Because of scarcity, there is a constant opportunity cost – if you use resources to consume one good, you cannot consume another. Therefore, an underlying feature of economics is …
Collusion occurs when rival firms agree to work together – e.g. setting higher prices in order to make greater profits. Collusion is a way for firms to make higher profits at the expense of consumers and reduces the competitiveness of the market. In the above example, a competitive industry will have price P1 and Q …
Price gouging is a situation where business take advantage of an external crisis to charge excessive prices for basic necessities – selling the goods significantly above their usual price. Many countries have laws against the practise of price gouging – to protect consumers against unfairly high prices during a national emergency. Example of price gouging …
Monopoly power occurs when a firm has a dominant position in the market. A pure monopoly is when one firm has 100% of the market share. A firm might be considered to have monopoly power with more than 25% market share. The main benefits of monopolies include Economies of scale – lower average costs and …
Definition: A natural monopoly occurs when the most efficient number of firms in the industry is one. A natural monopoly will typically have very high fixed costs meaning that it is impractical to have more than one firm producing the good. An example of a natural monopoly is tap water. It makes sense to have …
Barriers to entry are factors that make it difficult for new firms to enter the market. Barriers to entry will make a market less competitive. If barriers to entry are very high then the market will invariably become a monopoly. Examples of barriers to entry Tap water – Economies of Scale. This means as firms …
Definition of Monopoly A pure monopoly is defined as a single seller of a product, i.e. 100% of market share. In the UK a firm is said to have monopoly power if it has more than 25% of the market share. For example, Tesco @30% market share or Google 90% of search engine traffic. Monopoly …