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For example, a monopoly is needed in a natural monopoly like tap water.
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Monopolies make supernormal profit which can be invested in Research & Development. Therefore, for natural monopolies and industries with significant economies of scale, monopolies can be more efficient. In the above example If there were 3 firms producing 3,000 units at an average cost of £17, average costs would be higher than a monopoly producing 10,000 units, and an average cost of £9.This can lead to lower prices for consumers.
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If there are significant economies of scale, a monopoly can benefit from lower average costs.See also: Disadvantages of Monopolies Advantages of monopoly In some markets – clothing, choice is as important as price Consumers in a monopoly market face a lack of choice. A monopoly faces a lack of competition, and therefore, it may have less incentive to work at product innovation and develop better products. – higher average costs because it gets too big and difficult to coordinate. Diseconomies of scale – It is possible that if a monopoly gets too big it may experience dis-economies of scale.This is because farmers have little alternative but to supply supermarkets who have dominant buying power. supermarkets have been criticised for paying low prices to farmers.
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Higher prices to suppliers – A monopoly may use its market power (monopsony power) and pay lower prices to its suppliers.A monopolist makes Supernormal Profit Qm * (AR – AC ) leading to an unequal distribution of income in society. – It is argued that a monopoly has less incentive to cut costs because it doesn’t face competition from other firms.Therefore the AC curve is higher than it should be. Productive inefficiency A monopoly is productively inefficient because the output does not occur at the lowest point on the AC curve.(this is net loss of producer and consumer surplus)
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A monopoly results in dead-weight welfare loss indicated by the blue triangle. In a competitive market, the price would be lower and more consumers would benefit from buying the good. A monopoly is allocatively inefficient because in monopoly (at Qm) the price is greater than MC. Firms with monopoly power can set higher prices (Pm) than in a competitive market (Pc). For example, Tesco market share or Google 90% of search engine traffic.Ī monopoly maximises profits where MR=MC (at point m).
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