Maximum-profit equilibrium: monopoly

1. If an industry is to be classed as one of pure (or perfect) competition, there are said to be two basic requirements.It is argued that when these two conditions are satisfied, the result is, for the individual firm, a demand curve that is virtually horizontal—i.e., perfectly or almost perfectly elastic with respect to price. The firm is free to sell as much or as little as it pleases at a market price over which it has no control.

Very few real-life firms find themselves in this position. This is because (so the present chapter argues) of failure to satisfy one or both of the two basic requirements for perfect competition. In real life, that is, the number of firms may be too (large/small) for perfect competition. In addition, the products sold by the various firms may be (identical among all firms/differentiated from one firm to the next).

(i) many small firms, (ii) all selling identical pro-ducts:

small: differentiated from one firm to the next.

2. These two characteristics—a too-small number of sellers and/or the differentiation of the competing products—are said to have "monopolistic" consequences.

Notice that this word "monopolistic" does not mean that the firms involved are monopolies. The conventional definition of a monopoly situation is this: (i) only one firm in the industry, and (ii) no close substitutes available for the product of that one-firm industry.

Except in a few special areas such as public utilities, cases approximating genuine monopoly are almost as difficult to find as are cases of perfect competition. Monopoly is a kind of extreme instance of competitive imperfection. Economist Edward H. Chamberlin, who did much to develop the ideas set out in the first part of this chapter, argued that the typical real-life situation is one of "monopolistic competition." Each firm finds that it must reckon with the competition of close substitute products (so that it is not a monopoly); and yet its situation is not that of pure or perfect competition.

The word "monopolistic" is used because it is argued that there is one monopoly-like characteristic to be found in all such cases of monopolistic or imperfect competition.  less than perfectly elastic with respect to price—i.e., it is "tilted" rather than horizontal.

3. If the number of selling firms is small, the name given to the resulting situation is

If the number of selling firms is large, but competition is not perfect, this must be (in the language of the text) a situation of oligopoly: many differentiated sellers.

In its opening sections, this text chapter describes the circumstances of imperfect or monopolistic competition. But it does not attempt to explore these situations in any real detail. Instead, after its introductory outline, the chapter turns to an examination of the profit-maximizing behavior of a monopoly firm. Analytically, this monopoly case is decidedly easier than the so-called "intermediate" cases—those not perfectly competitive, and yet not completely monopolistic. It would be unwise to tackle these more intricate cases before having mastered the elementary ideas of monopoly pricing.

Even the terms and diagrams involved in a description of monopoly pricing may seem complicated at first. Yet the basic idea involved is simple. The monopoly firm is assumed to behave so as to "maximize its profit"—which is exactly what the firm in pure (or perfect) competition was assumed .The monopoly firm simply operates in rather different circumstances.

To review the basic ideas of "profit maximization":

1. "Maximizing profit" means making as much money as supply conditions will permit.

2. To "maximize profit," there must be something the firm can do that will influence its profit. There must be some variable which changes profit, and which the firm can control.

3. This chapter assumes that the monopoly firm can control the quantity it sells, just as the firm in pure (or perfect) competition can do. (In real life, this control is at best indirect and incomplete; there are other and more complex decisions to be made. But this chapter tackles a simple case.) So the variable which the monopoly firm can control is its sales quantity: it looks for the particular sales quantity that will maximize its profit.

4. The monopoly firm is assumed to have control over its sales quantity because it knows the demand schedule for its product—i.e., it knows the sales quantity that goes with each and any price it might charge.

5. From this demand schedule, it is easy to develop a revenue schedule (Total Revenue being quantity sold multiplied by price per unit)—i.e., a schedule showing revenue associated with each possible quantity sold.

6. The firm must know also the Total Cost of each and any output quantity. By bringing together the revenue and cost schedules, it can then identify that output quantity at which the excess of revenue over cost (profit) is greatest. (And it can tell the price to charge for this Maximum-profit output just by consulting the demand schedule once again.)

To repeat, the essential thing to grasp about this sequence of ideas is that it is simple. It is only when the monopoly firm's profit-maximizing "equilibrium position" (with respect to sales output and price) is outlined in marginal terms that it may seem complicated. But these marginal terms are essential analytic tools when one moves on to more complex situations. Hence the emphasis on Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost in the text chapter and in the review questions which follow.

4. Columns (1) and (2) of Study Guide Table 1 represent a demand schedule. This schedule has been computed or estimated by a firm as indicating the quantities it can sell daily at various prices.

Table 1

This firm must operate under conditions of (perfect/imperfect) competition, since as the output to be sold increases, price (remains constant/must be reduced).

5. We treat the first two columns of Table 1 as representing a monopoly firm's demand schedule. Our task is to determine what price the monopolist will charge, and what output it will produce and sell—if its objective is Maximum-profit.

o. Column (3) of Table 1 shows Total Revenue—price times quantity. Complete the four blanks in this column.

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