Nowadays, there is a problem with finding the right price in the market because consumers want the lowest and producers the highest price. The market structures shows who is a price maker and who is a price taker and so, the level of profit available. Natural monopoly is a type of a monopoly, which is one of the main market structures. But how does a natural monopoly differ from a normal monopoly and what benefits or disadvantages does it bring with it?

A monopoly is a market structure, where there is only one supplier or entity of a good or service in the market. In reality, a firm is categorised in UK as a monopoly when it has at least 25% market share (Economics Help, 2012). Monopolies can emerged from “exclusive ownership of a scarce resource, granted monopoly status by the government, exclusive patents or copyright to sell a product or protect their intellectual property” (Economics online, anon) or mergers and acquisitions to sell a good or service. One of the key characteristics for a monopoly is that the monopoly firm is a price maker because there is lack of competition. This position allows the firm to obtain abnormal profit in the long run when it operates at the profit maximising point, where marginal cost equals marginal revenue. The products in the industry are non-homogeneous and hence, they do not have close substitutes. A monopoly is characterised by asymmetric information. Consumers, who buy the product, do not have the same information as the supplier and