Eco201

Module 5 Case Assignment:   Competition and markets
ECO 201 - Microeconomics
Professor:   Dr. David Fogarty

Competition and markets
For this assignment, I have to report on three issues, to ensure that I am able to understand the differences between perfect and imperfect competition.   The first topic I will address is Firms in Competitive Markets, the next topic I will evaluate is Monopoly, and the final topic that I will reflect upon is Oligopoly.
Firms in Competitive Markets - After viewing the “Incredible Edible Egg” Web Site, which is sponsored by the American Egg Board I obviously realized that this was, indeed, an advertisement for the entire egg industry.   One of the questions for this assignment was whether or not I had ever seen an advertisement for an individual egg producer.   Oddly enough, I have seen an ad for a particular “brand” of eggs called “Eggsland’s Best”.   This particular egg company has marketed itself as a premier egg – and to help signify their distinction, all of their eggs are stamped with a tiny red stamp that reads “EB”.   This stamp ensures that you have purchased a very high quality egg, as opposed to those “ordinary, low budget” eggs – which must be inferior since they don’t have the quality stamp.   In addition, I have seen several variations of the egg product on the market – one example of this is Egg Beaters.  
Monopoly – After researching the concept of a monopoly, which is defined as having the exclusive rights or control of a commodity in a particular market that makes possible the manipulation of prices, I have determined that I don’t believe that Debeers is a monopolistic company in relation to diamonds.   There are too many other firms that sell or distribute diamonds, to qualify Debeers as a diamond monopoly firm, in my opinon.  

Oligopoly – In researching the economic term “Oligopoly”, I was surprised to discover that it meant the market condition that exists when there are few sellers, as a result of which... [continues]

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