Market power in the context of "Marginal cost"

A monopoly (from Greek μόνος, mónos, 'single, alone' and πωλεῖν, pōleîn, 'to sell') is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic competition to produce a particular thing, a lack of viable substitute goods, and the possibility of a high monopoly price well above the seller's marginal cost that leads to a high monopoly profit. The verb monopolise or monopolize refers to the process by which a company gains the ability to raise prices or exclude competitors. In economics, a monopoly is a single seller. In law, a monopoly is a business entity that has significant market power, that is, the power to charge overly high prices, which is associated with unfair price raises. Although monopolies may be big businesses, size is not a characteristic of a monopoly. A small business may still have the power to raise prices in a small industry (or market).

A monopoly may also have monopsony control of a sector of a market. A monopsony is a market situation in which there is only one buyer. Likewise, a monopoly should be distinguished from a cartel (a form of oligopoly), in which several providers act together to coordinate services, prices or sale of goods. Monopolies, monopsonies and oligopolies are all situations in which one or a few entities have market power and therefore interact with their customers (monopoly or oligopoly), or suppliers (monopsony) in ways that distort the market.

In theories of competition in economics, a barrier to entry, or an economic barrier to entry, is a fixed cost that must be incurred by a new entrant, regardless of production or sales activities, into a market that incumbents do not have or have not had to incur.Because barriers to entry protect incumbent firms and restrict competition in a market, they can contribute to distortionary prices and are therefore most important when discussing antitrust policy. Barriers to entry often cause or aid the existence of monopolies and oligopolies, or give companies market power.Barriers of entry also have an importance in industries. First of all it is important to identify that some exist naturally, such as brand loyalty.Governments can also create barriers to entry to meet consumer protection laws, protecting the public. In other cases it can also be due to inherent scarcity of public resources needed to enter a market.

In microeconomics, a monopoly price is set by a monopoly. A monopoly occurs when a firm lacks any viable competition and is the sole producer of the industry's product. Because a monopoly faces no competition, it has absolute market power and can set a price above the firm's marginal cost.

The monopoly ensures a monopoly price exists when it establishes the quantity of the product. As the sole supplier of the product within the market, its sales establish the entire industry's supply within the market, and the monopoly's production and sales decisions can establish a single price for the industry without any influence from competing firms. The monopoly always considers the demand for its product as it considers what price is appropriate, such that it chooses a production supply and price combination that ensures a maximum economic profit, which is determined by ensuring that the marginal cost (determined by the firm's technical limitations that form its cost structure) is the same as the marginal revenue (MR) (as determined by the impact a change in the price of the product will impact the quantity demanded) at the quantity it decides to sell. The marginal revenue is solely determined by the demand for the product within the industry and is the change in revenue that will occur by lowering the price just enough to ensure a single additional unit is sold. The marginal revenue is positive, but it is lower than its associated price because lowering the price will increase the demand for its product and increase the firm's sales revenue, and lower the price paid by those who are willing to buy the product at the higher price, which ensures a lower sales revenue on the product sales than those willing to pay the higher price.

In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It postulates that, holding all else equal, the unit price for a particular good or other traded item in a perfectly competitive market, will vary until it settles at the market-clearing price, where the quantity demanded equals the quantity supplied such that an economic equilibrium is achieved for price and quantity transacted. The concept of supply and demand forms the theoretical basis of modern economics.

In situations where a firm has market power, its decision on how much output to bring to market influences the market price, in violation of perfect competition. There, a more complicated model should be used; for example, an oligopoly or differentiated-product model. Likewise, where a buyer has market power, models such as monopsony will be more accurate.

A trust or corporate trust is a large grouping of business interests with significant market power, which may be embodied as a corporation or as a group of corporations that cooperate with one another in various ways. These ways can include constituting a trade association, owning participating interests in one another, constituting a corporate group (sometimes specifically a conglomerate), or combinations thereof. The term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies in the United States during the Second Industrial Revolution in the 19th century and early 20th century. The use of corporate trusts during this period is the historical reason for the name "antitrust law".

In the broader sense of the term, relating to trust law, a trust is a legal arrangement based on principles developed and recognised over centuries in English law, specifically in equity, by which one party conveys legal possession and title of certain property to a second party, called a trustee. The trustee holds the property, while any benefit from the property accrues to another person, the beneficiary. Trusts are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children and other family members, for example. In business, such trusts, with corporate entities as the trustees, have sometimes been used to combine several large businesses in order to exert complete control over a market, which is how the narrower sense of the term grew out of the broader sense.

Predatory pricing, also known as price slashing, is a commercial pricing strategy which involves reducing the retail prices to a level lower than competitors to eliminate competition. Selling at lower prices than a competitor is known as undercutting. This is where an industry dominant firm with sizable market power will deliberately reduce the prices of a product or service to loss-making levels to attract all consumers and create a monopoly. For a period of time, the prices are set unrealistically low to ensure competitors are unable to effectively compete with the dominant firm without suffering a substantial loss. The aim is to force existing or potential competitors within the industry to abandon the market so that the dominant firm may establish a stronger market position and create further barriers to entry. Once competition has been driven from the market, consumers are forced into a monopolistic market where the dominant firm can safely increase prices to recoup its losses.

The critical difference between predatory pricing and other market strategies is the potential for consumer harm in the long-term. Despite the initial buyer's market created through firms' competing for consumer preference, as the price war favours the dominant firm, consumers will be forced to accept fewer options and higher prices for the same goods and services in the monopolistic market. If the strategy is executed successfully, predatory pricing can cause consumer harm and is, therefore, considered anti-competitive in many jurisdictions, making the practice illegal under numerous competition laws.

Market dominance is the control of an economic market by a firm. A dominant firm possesses the power to affect competition and influence market price. A firm's dominance is a measure of the power of a brand, product, service, or firm, relative to competitive offerings, whereby a dominant firm can behave independent of their competitors or consumers, and without concern for resource allocation. Dominant positioning is both a legal concept and an economic concept and the distinction between the two is important when determining whether a firm's market position is dominant.

Abuse of market dominance is an anti-competitive practice, however dominance itself is legal.