Updated Jun 26, 2020 As we have seen above, there are certain occasions where monopolies are socially desired or even encouraged by the government (e.g. patents, copyrights). Furthermore, it is possible that the inefficiencies caused by a possible intervention would be more harmful than the effects caused by the monopoly itself. In those cases, the monopoly outcome is more desirable for society and the government will remain inactive and not interfere in the market.
Monopolies typically emerge because entry into a particular market is restricted. Those restrictions may be effects of high entrance costs, government regulations, or other impediments. Due to the lack of competition, monopolies often cause higher prices, lower outputs and sometimes even inferior quality of the provided goods or services. Thus, to see why monopolies still persist in certain industries, we need to take a closer look.Sources of Monopoly Power
Effects of Monopoly Power
To give an example, imagine you are the sole supplier of ice cream in your village. To keep things simple, assume you can sell 1 cone for a price of 1$, thus your revenue will be 1$. However, if you want to sell 2 cones, you have to reduce the price to 0.90$, which will result in a marginal revenue of 0.80$ and total revenue of 1.80$. So, even though you can sell an additional ice cream cone, you earn 0.10$ less on each unit sold, therefore marginal revenue falls (see also how to calculate marginal revenue).
The fact that marginal revenue is lower than the price of the good has several implications for the profit-maximizing behavior of a monopolist. Those can be illustrated in a supply and demand diagram (see illustration 1).
Illustration 1: Profit maximization of a monopolist
To maximize profits, the monopolist will produce up to the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost (MR = MC). This results in an output quantity of QM, and a price of PM. In contrast, in a competitive market (where MR = D), the company would produce quantity QC, for a price of PC.
Hence, monopoly output is lower than the competitive output, but prices are still higher. This results in a welfare loss for society (deadweight loss) which can be quantified as the shaded triangle DWL. The deadweight loss is the reason why monopolies are often not in the best interest of society.
Government Policy towards Monopolies
In a Nutshell
Monopoly Power
A Monopoly is one of the four typical market structures. It describes a situation where a single firm (or individual) is the sole producer and seller of a product or service in an entire market. It is characterized by a lack of competition. As a result, the monopolist has the ability to affect market prices, which often results in an inefficient outcome for society.
As mentioned above, monopolies derive their market power from entry barriers to their markets. Those barriers can be divided into three groups, according to their sources: control of specific resources, government regulations or natural monopolies. For more information, check out our article about the causes of monopoly markets.
Since a monopolist company is the sole supplier of its industry, it faces a downward sloping demand curve (unlike firms in a competitive market). As a result, the firm has to lower the price of its good or service to increase the quantity sold. Therefore, a monopolist’s marginal revenue (MR) is always less than the price (P) of its good or service. This is crucial for understanding monopolist behavior.
As we just saw, a monopolist usually faces a downward sloping demand curve (D) and a marginal revenue curve (MR) that lies below the demand curve. In fact, whenever we face a linear demand curve (e.g. y= a*x – b), the marginal revenue curve will be twice as steep (e.g. y=a*x – 2b). Though, please note that this only applies to linear curves.
To react to the inefficiencies caused by monopolies, the government has different options to chose from, depending on the prevalent economic system. The most relevant ones are the following: competition law, price regulations, nationalization, or doing nothing.
Competition law
One way to prevent monopolies from arising is through competition law. In this case, government institutions primarily control mergers and acquisitions to make sure they will not result in an impediment to the competitiveness of an industry. In addition, the institutions enact laws to prevent collusive behavior and other activities that could restrict competition.
Price regulations
Alternatively, if a monopoly already exists, the government policy can confine itself to controlling the negative effects of monopoly power. Generally, this is done by prescribing the prices the monopolists are allowed to charge. However, it is rather difficult to set those prices appropriately, which makes it difficult to successfully implement this policy in reality.
Nationalization
A rather invasive option is the nationalization of existing monopolies. This allows the government to directly control the firm’s behavior and thus minimize its negative effects on society. However, since this kind of policy is diametrically opposed to the idea of a free enterprise economy, it has become extremely rare in practice.
Remain inactive
A Monopoly is a market situation where a single firm (or individual) is the sole producer and seller of a product or service in an entire market. Monopolies can arise because of specific resources, government regulations, costs of production, or deliberate actions. They are characterized by a lack of competition, which results in lower production outputs and higher prices. The government can react to monopolies by enacting competition law, imposing price regulations, nationalizing the monopolies or, if the inefficiency is acceptable (or even desirable) for society, by not doing anything at all.