Give an example of a government-created monopoly.

Is creating this monopoly necessarily bad

public policy? Explain.

The government might have a monopoly because of, a key resource is owned
by a single firm, the government gives a single firm the exclusive right to produce some
good or, the costs of production make a single producer more efficient than many
producers. Examples of monopolies include the water producer in a small town, who
owns a key resource, the one well in town, a pharmaceutical company that is given a
patent on a new drug by the government, and a bridge, which is a natural monopoly
because (if the bridge is uncongested) having just one bridge is efficient

A government monopoly is when the complete control of a market comprising

goods or services is handed over to a government agency. This is accompanied with
regulations which prohibit competition from other companies for that good or service.
It is also known as a public ownership or monopoly. This type of arrangement is often
confused with what is called a government-granted or government-created monopoly.
In this type of monopoly, the government invests the sole right of a resource, good, or
service, with a private individual or enterprise, rather than with itself. What is similar in
both cases is that, competition for the concerned market is banned by laws,
regulations, and other methods of enforcement. In a government monopoly, business
decisions are taken by government authorities. These monopolies may be at the level
of a national, state or local government. They are generally created, owned, and run
by the government, though, in some cases, the government may only be an investing
partner.

Government-created monopoly comes from the existence of patent and

copyright laws. Both allow firms or individuals to be monopolies for extended periods
of time 20 years for patents, the life of the author plus 70 years for copyrights. But this
monopoly power is good, because without it, no one would write a book, or a song and
no firm would invest in research and development to invent new products or
pharmaceuticals. Government also sometimes own a monopoly corporation for
example, TNB in Malaysia. This monopoly is necessary because the capital costs of
electricity production is extremely high and this makes a single producer more efficient
than a large number of producers
What gives the government the power to regulate mergers between firms? Give a good reason
and a bad reason (from the perspective of society’s welfare) that two firms might want to
merge.

The government has the power to regulate mergers between firms because of
competition laws such as the Trade Practices Act. Firms might want to merge to
increase operating efficiency and reduce costs, something that is good for society, or
to gain monopoly power, which is bad for society. When regulators tell a natural
monopoly that it must set price equal to marginal cost, two problems arise. The first is
that, because a natural monopoly has a constant marginal cost that is less than
average cost, setting price equal to marginal cost means that the price is less than
average cost, so the firm will lose money. The firm would exit the industry unless the
government subsidised it but getting revenue for such a subsidy would cause the
government to raise other taxes, increasing their deadweight loss. The second
problem is that it gives the monopoly no incentive to reduce costs. Resale price
maintenance occurs when a wholesaler sets a minimum price that retailers can
charge. This might seem to be anticompetitive because it prevents retailers from
competing on price. But that’s doubtful because, if the wholesaler has market power,
it can exercise such power through the wholesale price, wholesalers have no incentive
to discourage competition among retailers since doing so reduces the quantity sold;
and, maintaining a minimum price may be valuable so retailers provide customers with
good service.

A firm trying to use predatory pricing to eliminate a competitor could face a tricky
situation. For a price war to drive out a rival, prices must be driven below cost. This is
likely to spur demand and it is possible that the firm will suffer large losses. Tying can
be used to raise profits as it is a form of price discrimination. If different buyers value,
the two tied products differently than tying allows the seller to increase profit by
charging a combined price closer to the buyers’ total willingness to pay. Tying remains
a controversial business practice as there are arguments that it can be used to extend
market power in one market to another market. Rules that create transparent pricing
may make cartels easier to sustain. With transparent pricing any cheating on the cartel
is easier to uncover and punish effectively.
The prospect of few benefits and substantial costs from cheating will tend to make it
easier for cartels to maintain discipline with transparent pricing. Legislation designed
to encourage competition and discourage the use of monopoly practices is what gives
the government the power to regulate mergers between firms. A bad reason two firms
might want to merge is to reduce competition. A good reason two firms might want to
merge is to lower costs through more efficient joint production. If regulators are to set
price equal to marginal cost, that price will be less than the firm's average total cost,
and the firm will lose money. This will cause the monopoly firm to exit the industry.
Solving this problem through subsidies or allowing the monopolist to charge a price
higher than the marginal cost will result in deadweight losses

Monopolistic competition involves many firms competing against each other but
selling products that are distinctive in some way. Examples include stores that sell
different styles of clothing; restaurants or grocery stores that sell different kinds of food;
and even products like golf balls or beer that may be at least somewhat similar but
differ in public perception because of advertising and brand names. When products
are distinctive, each firm has a mini-monopoly on its particular style or flavour or brand
name. However, firms producing such products must also compete with other styles
and flavours and brand names. The term “monopolistic competition” captures this
mixture of mini-monopoly and tough competition, and the following Clear It Up feature
introduces its derivation.

 A perfectly competitive firm is a price taker, which means that it must accept
the equilibrium price at which it sells goods. If a perfectly competitive firm
attempts to charge even a tiny amount more than the market price, it will be
unable to make any sales.

 Perfect competition occurs when there are many sellers, there is easy entry
and exiting of firms, products are identical from one seller to another, and
sellers are price takers.

 The market structure is the conditions in an industry, such as number of

sellers, how easy or difficult it is for a new firm to enter, and the type of products
that are sold.
Perfect competition and why it matters

Firms are said to be in perfect competition when the following conditions occur:

 Many firms produce identical products.

 Many buyers are available to buy the product, and many sellers are available
to sell the product.
 Sellers and buyers have all relevant information to make rational decisions
about the product being bought and sold.
 Firms can enter and leave the market without any restrictions—in other words,
there is free entry and exit into and out of the market.
A perfectly competitive firm is known as a price taker because the pressure of
competing firms forces them to accept the prevailing equilibrium price in the market. If
a firm in a perfectly competitive market raises the price of its product by so much as a
penny, it will lose all of its sales to competitors. When a wheat grower wants to know
what the going price of wheat is, they have to go to the computer or listen to the radio
to check. The market price is determined solely by supply and demand in the entire
market and not by the individual farmer. Also, a perfectly competitive firm must be a
very small player in the overall market so that it can increase or decrease output
without noticeably affecting the overall quantity supplied and price in the market.

A perfectly competitive market is a hypothetical extreme. Producers in a number of

industries do, however, face many competitor firms selling highly similar goods, in
which case they must often act as price takers. Agricultural markets are often used as
an example.

The same crops grown by different farmers are largely interchangeable. According to
the United States Department of Agriculture monthly reports, in 2015, US corn farmers
received an average price of $6.00 per bushel and wheat farmers received an average
price of $6.00 per bushel. A corn farmer who attempted to sell at $7.00 per bushel or
a wheat grower who attempted to sell for $8.00 per bushel would not have found any
buyers.

A perfectly competitive firm will not sell below the equilibrium price either. Why should
they when they can sell all they want at the higher price? Other examples of
agricultural markets that operate in close to perfectly competitive markets are small
roadside produce markets and small organic farmers.

In this tutorial, we'll examine how profit-seeking firms decide how much to produce in
perfectly competitive markets. Such firms analyze their costs. In the short run, the
perfectly competitive firm will seek the quantity of output where profits are highest or—
if profits are not possible—where losses are lowest. In this example, the short run
refers to a situation in which firms are producing with one fixed input and incur fixed
costs of production. In the real world, firms can have many fixed inputs.

In the long run, perfectly competitive firms will react to profits by increasing production.
They will respond to losses by reducing production or exiting the market. Ultimately, a
long-run equilibrium will be attained when no new firms want to enter the market and
existing firms do not want to leave the market since economic profits have been driven
down to zero.

Efficiency in perfectly competitive markets

When profit-maximizing firms in perfectly competitive markets combine with utility-

maximizing consumers, something remarkable happens—the resulting quantities of
outputs of goods and services demonstrate both productive and allocative efficiency.

Productive efficiency means producing without waste so that the choice is on the
production possibility frontier. In the long run in a perfectly competitive market—
because of the process of entry and exit—the price in the market is equal to the
minimum of the long-run average cost curve. In other words, goods are being
produced and sold at the lowest possible average cost.

Allocative efficiency means that among the points on the production possibility frontier,
the point that is chosen is socially preferred—at least in a particular and specific sense.
In a perfectly competitive market, price is equal to the marginal cost of production.
Think about the price that is paid for a good as a measure of the social benefit received
for that good; after all, willingness to pay conveys what the good is worth to a buyer.
Then think about the marginal cost of producing the good as representing not just the
cost for the firm but, more broadly, as the social cost of producing that good.

When perfectly competitive firms follow the rule that profits are maximized by
producing at the quantity where price is equal to marginal cost, they are ensuring that
the social benefits received from producing a good are in line with the social costs of
production.

Let's walk through an example to more thoroughly explore what is meant by allocative
efficiency. Let's begin by assuming that the market for wholesale flowers is perfectly
competitive, so \text{P} = \text{MC}P=MCP, equals, M, C. Now, consider what it would
mean if firms in that market produced a lesser quantity of flowers. At a lesser quantity,
marginal costs would not yet have increased as much, so the price would exceed
marginal cost: \text{P} > \text{MC}P>MCP, is greater than, M, C.

In this situation, the benefit to society as a whole of producing additional goods—as

measured by the willingness of consumers to pay for marginal units of a good—would
be higher than the cost of the inputs of labor and physical capital needed to produce
the marginal good. In other words, the gains to society as a whole from producing
additional marginal units would be greater than the costs.

On the other hand, consider what it would mean if—compared to the level of output at
the allocatively efficient choice where \text{P} = \text{MC}P=MCP, equals, M, C—firms
produced a greater quantity of flowers. At a greater quantity, marginal costs of
production would increase so that \text{P} < \text{MC}P<MCP, is less than, M, C. In
this case, the marginal costs of producing additional flowers would be greater than the
benefit to society as measured by what people are willing to pay. For society as a
whole—since the costs are outstripping the benefits—it would make sense to produce
a lower quantity of such goods.

When perfectly competitive firms maximize their profits by producing the quantity
where \text{P} = \text{MC}P=MCP, equals, M, C, they also ensure that the benefits to
consumers of what they are buying—as measured by the price they are willing to
pay—is equal to the costs to society of producing the marginal units—as measured by
the marginal costs the firm must pay. Thus, allocative efficiency holds.
When we say that a perfectly competitive market in the long run will feature both
productive and allocative efficiency, we need to remember that economists are using
the concept of efficiency in a particular and specific sense, not as a synonym for
“desirable in every way”. For one thing, consumers’ ability to pay reflects the income
distribution in a particular society. Thus, a homeless person may have no ability to pay
for housing because they have insufficient income.

Perfect competition, in the long run, is a hypothetical benchmark. For market

structures such as monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly—which are
more frequently observed in the real world than perfect competition—firms will not
always produce at the minimum of average cost, nor will they always set price equal
to marginal cost. Thus, these other competitive situations will not produce productive
and allocative efficiency.

Moreover, real-world markets include many issues that are assumed away in the
model of perfect competition, including pollution, inventions of new technology,
poverty—which may make some people unable to pay for basic necessities of life—
government programs like national defense or education, discrimination in labor
markets, and buyers and sellers who must deal with imperfect and unclear information.

The theoretical efficiency of perfect competition does, however, provide a useful

benchmark for comparing the issues that arise from these real-world problems.