Industrial regulation is government imposed regulation of an entire industry in order to monitor prices and products provided to the public. Industrial regulation exists to avoid overpricing, lack of competition and the overall taking advantage of consumers. The intended impact on the markets is to promote competition and economic efficiency. Industrial regulation also intends that monopolies and oligopolies do not control the entire market, charging high prices and providing fewer and inferior products, which in turn “harms consumers and society” (McConnell, Brue, Flynn & et al, 2011, pg. 382). These regulations reduce the market power of monopolies, therefore allowing entry into the market by the competition which then allows for substitute products and price competition. It also reduces the power of oligopolies and increases market competition and prevents collusion. The antitrust laws also help anti competition and price fixing by not allowing monopolies to develop.…
There are many models of market structure in the field of economics. They include perfect competition on one end, monopoly on the other end, and competitive monopoly and oligopoly somewhere in the middle. In this paper, we will focus on the oligopoly structure because it is one of the strongest influences in the United States market. Although oligopolies can also be global, we will focus strictly on the United States here. We will define oligopoly, give key characteristics important to the oligopoly structure, explain why oligopolies form, then give an example of an oligopoly in today’s economy. Finally, we will discuss the benefits and costs in this type of market structure.…
One of the familiar monopoly breakups in recent history was the Bell System divestiture in 1974. Under this filing "Bell System" agreed to divest its local exchange service operating companies, in return for a chance to go into the computer business, AT&T Computer Systems.3 Now this action by the Department of Justice not only produced competition in the market, but has since forced a surge in producing many technologies we enjoy today. Some of our most advanced companies such as Verizon were not only birthed but benefited from such an action. This is a firm example we can look back on and see the fruits of good economic competition, even if it is government regulated.…
The scope of this paper is to break down and define social regulation, industrial regulation, and natural monopolies by explaining how they have impacted society and why they exist. It is also the intent to summarize the Antitrust Laws, explain the major functions of the five primary federal regulatory commissions that govern social regulation, and identify three main regulatory commissions of industrial regulation.…
The theory of perfectly contestable markets was presented as a generalization of the theory of perfectly competitive markets and was presented as providing guidelines for the conduct of regulation, namely to allow freedom of entry and exit and to ensure equal access of competitors. An oligopolistic market is a particular market that is controlled by a small number of firms. An oligopoly is much like a monopoly, in which only one company exerts control over most of a market, however in an oligopoly, there are at least two firms controlling the market. A contestable market is one where incumbent firms face real and potential competition. A market with only one firm can still be contestable if there are serious threats of entry into that market. By increasing a market’s contestability, the overall efficiency should improve because it would make incumbent firms more productively, dynamically, allocatively and x-efficient. This essay will therefore argue that contestability is the best way to make a market more competitive as it improves all four aspects of efficiency.…
In the late nineteenth century, the United States of America saw companies flourish. Advances in technology greatly increased output and lowered costs of many goods; people were also making more money and the nation was truly prospering. Due to the booming economy, a great deal of changes occurred. Companies started to grow at a faster rate, and soon there were enormous companies that seemed to rule their individual industries. It quickly became apparent that some firms were monopolizing the industries, making prices higher and lessening the competitiveness of the market. Many companies were also fixing prices, forcing other businesses to pay ridiculous amounts since they had no other options.…
Competitive markets, monopolies, and oligopolies play a big role in the economy. We will be discussing the characteristics, price determination, output determination, barriers to entry, and the role in economy of each market structure.…
Q3. Given the products that Tesco sells (largely necessities), why have sales been falling, despite household’s tight budgets?…
The contextual influence that may pose the greatest challenge to companies’ competiveness is the government. The government has laws…
1. Fill in the table below. Assume TC stands for Total Cost, TFC as Total Fixed Cost, TVC as Total Variable Cost, ATC as Average Total Cost, AFC as Average Fixed Cost, AVC as Average Variable Cost, and MC as Marginal Cost.…
Welcome to Microeconomics 1. In this unit of study, we intend to introduce you to the particular principles, language, techniques and insights associated with an economic perspective of the modern world. The following quotation by John Galbraith underlines the ubiquitous relevance of economics:…
Throughout the years, there have been numerous debates on the necessity of regulation of accounting standards. The two opposing views to setting these standards are one that is based on regulations and the other based on market forces. In this report, we will discuss the supporting views and arguments of both methods and further justify the method that I personally favor.…
Free markets have often been idealized in the US, and have become a dominant tool for trade and distribution of goods and services. There have been multiple waves of government regulation and deregulation of the market in US history. Each of these trends have been grappling with the central question of how sufficient markets are at satisfying our goals. In theory, free markets are fair and efficient at distributing goods and services. In reality, however, government must intervene in the marketplace for two overarching reasons. First, because in practice free markets left to themselves are not always fair and efficient. And second, because fairness and efficiency are not our only goals and values as a society.…
In his article, “How Corruption is Strangling US Innovation,” James Allworth delineates why for the most part, capitalism’s sole beneficiaries are incumbent firms. It is these incumbent firms such as “NADA and Comcast” that hinder the innovative efforts of up-and-coming organizations/companies, by establishing “ridiculous regulations that new entrants must contend with.” These dominant firms thwart the efforts of small, but rising companies because it does not suit their interests to allow the competitor to come in and run off with their current customers, who will most presumably prefer the innovation, offered by the developing company to the incumbent’s conventional, pre-existing product/service that lacks innovation. People are drawn to innovation, so naturally with innovation in place, dominant firms eventually lose their dominance due to the competition of innovation. Hence, it is for their very survival that these large, incumbent firms impose such “ridiculous regulations” making the “new entrants lives very difficult.”…
“Monopolistic competition is the worst of all possible worlds, failing to achieve either the pricing efficiency created by the intensity of perfect competition or the scale economies and innovation of oligopoly and monopoly.”…