Oligopoly Case Study

1.0 INTRODUCTION

In an economy, there exists different market structures to accommodate different industries and firms. This study will be made to understand in further depth the market power of different market structures, and in particular an example of using case studies of agricultural sector of the French markets to explain how an ideal perfectly competitive market works. This will then be further strengthened with several references linked to the case study.
1.1 Monopoly market

This market usually exists when there is only one firm in the sector/industry. A monopoly usually has no close substitutes. For example: a local electricity company, or a railway service in a city. In order for these firms to be able to maintain their monopoly

They are differentiated by their products such as soft drinks and soap powder. There also exist little firms who produce similar products such as petrol. However, in oligopoly, there are barriers to enter the market. Similar to monopoly, the barriers are no different, and it differs from one industry to the other. This is why the firms in oligopoly are interdependent with each other, because the firms all have large market shares and each of their actions would affect the rest, so any decision-making will be based on their competitors’ reactions. This brings them to either compete with each other or to engage in collusions, which is to club together to maximise own profits, like a win-win

This is also where price mechanism takes place because any changes in demand and supply, will affect the price, and eventually balancing the demand to be equal to supply. This is the reason why consumers and producers have no control over the price, and in this situation, everyone is considered as price takers. This causes a horizontal line in the demand curve for the firm’s product(s), as can be seen in Figure 1 (b). Figure 1
There are barely any barriers to enter this market, making it easy to enter and exit according to the firm’s capabilities.
2.2 Governments’