Monopoly is a market structure in which a single seller or producer of a particular product or service dominates the industry.
This domination gives them the power to control prices and output, and they face no competition from other sellers.
Monopoly can arise due to various reasons such as barriers to entry, exclusive government licenses or patents, and economies of scale.
In most cases, monopolies tend to benefit the producer or seller but can be harmful to consumers since they have no alternative choice.
Monopoly Case Study: Microsoft Corporation
Microsoft Corporation was once accused of monopolizing the software industry with its Windows operating system. With almost all personal computers running on Windows, Microsoft had gained significant bargaining power over software developers who wanted their applications to run on that platform. Additionally, Microsoft was able to push prices up, ignoring consumer objections because it had created a situation where consumers had little choice but to use Microsoft-compatible products.
Comprehension Questions: As you read through this article, our editor Chris will pose comprehension and critical thinking questions to help you get the most out of this article. Teachers, if you assign this article for homework, have the students answer these questions at home, then use them as stimuli for in-class discussion.Definition of Monopoly
Monopoly is an economic term that refers to a market structure where one firm or producer has exclusive control over the production or sale of a good or service, resulting in no direct competition (Robinson, 1969).
This gives the monopolist extreme power to set prices and manipulate market demand for that particular product.
As stated by Coppo and colleagues (2020),
“Opposite to the perfect competition, a monopoly is a market structure characterized by a single seller, selling a unique product in the market” (p. 6).
Monopolies can arise due to a variety of factors, such as barriers to entry, exclusive government licenses or patents, and economies of scale.
Borobov and colleagues (2021) believe that:
“…market monopolization is a completely natural process for the market since every firm seeks to absorb the whole industry” (p. 1453).
In some cases, monopolies can benefit consumers through the economies of scale derived from production efficiencies that result in reduced costs for items they purchase.
However, left unchecked by regulatory oversight agencies, monopoly firms may abuse their market power in various ways, such as limiting output production quantities or charging high prices because consumers have few alternatives.
This, in turn, leads to negative outcomes for consumers who are vulnerable when sole sellers raise prices without fear of being undercut by other sellers.
Overall, monopoly refers to a market structure in which a single seller or producer dominates the market for a specific product or service.
Comprehension Checkpoint: Write your own paraphrased definition of a market monopoly. Consider using keywords in your definition such as “control”, “goods and services”, and “competition.”Examples of Monopoly
- Media: Generally, media laws attempt to minimize the likelihood of a private monopoly taking over (although, the Murdoch empire tries!). Nevertheless, authoritarian nations like Vietnam tend to monopolize media in state hands to control the narrative, in what we call state monopoly.
- Railways: In many countries, especially those with a single railway service provider, the railroads have a monopoly over freight and passenger transportation.
- Utility Companies: A typical example is energy utilities monopolizing a local market due to having exclusive access to the infrastructure that delivers electricity and gas to homes and industries in certain areas.
- National Postal Services: In many nations, postal services often have legal frameworks protecting their dominance in specific areas for national mail delivery alternatives and thus have no real competitors enabling them to dominate that market segment completely.
- Agriculture: Agricultural markets can be dominated by producers wielding economies of scale such that only large firms can compete effectively, reducing competitiveness while negatively influencing consumer pricing.
- Airports: Strong governmental regulations around building airports makes accessibility limited only to those who can withstand the financial investment needed, which allows monopolistic tendencies to arise over space control ultimately toward air traffic – operations, ground handling, and aircraft maintenance management.
- Music Streaming Services: With few major players in the market-dominating music streaming services like Apple Music, Spotify, and Amazon Music, they hold a significant share of access points available across global markets, whereby consumers rely on competition-free distribution represented by a handful of providers.
- Healthcare: Pharmaceutical companies hold patents over various life-critical medications without real substitutes or generics in the market. So, they are limiting consumer access to medicines, leading to price increases by suppliers benefiting from monopolizing such medication production efforts.
- Mining Industry: In certain countries, mining companies (for instance, oil) hold exclusive rights over certain land areas and resources. So, they are dictating the size of their output. This creates systemic imbalances favoring large industry players at the expense of small-scale operators or wider communities concerned with environmental degradation aspects.
- Cable TV Providers: Companies like Comcast, Charter, and Verizon offer cable television services in many places. In some areas, they are the sole providers of cable TV and internet services, limiting the choice available to consumers.
Comprehension Checkpoint: Why do you think it is easier to establish a monopoly over infrastructure, like railways and utility companies, compared to commodities like stationery and shoes?Characteristics of Monopolies
Monopoly is a market structure in which a single firm dominates the industry, producing goods or services without any close substitutes and preventing competition (Burkett, 2006).
The main characteristics of a monopoly include the following:
- Single Seller: A monopoly market structure is one in which only one seller or producer holds significant control over the market, with no other rivals to compete against.
- Unique Product: Monopolies are usually associated with unique products having no close substitutes. This characteristic represents the primary source of monopolist power, as customers have nowhere else to turn.
- High Barriers to Entry: The monopolist retains control over the market owing to high entry barriers such as economies of scale competitive advantages, extensive patent protections, legal and political systems roadblocks, or intense intellectual property laws making it hard for other competitors to penetrate into the market and become an alternative and viable option.
- Market Power: The dominant seller’s market power allows them to control prices and output levels, making it hard for consumers to make optimal choices regarding product selection by exerting influence on demand via pricing representations.
- Price Maker: A monopolist is free to set prices without concerning competition repercussions, leading to maximum profits and less concern for reducing prices due to dominant positioning within that field (Burkett, 2006).
Types of Monopolies
There are various types of monopolies that can exist within an economy, from pure monopoly to geographic and even government monopoly.
Here is a brief explanation of the most common types:
- Pure Monopoly: A pure monopoly occurs when only one company produces and sells a particular product or service to the market, often leading to a complete absence of competition. Pure monopolies arise through either natural circumstances or practices such as exclusivity agreements with producers or coercing substitute goods purchases (Coppo et al., 2020).
- Natural Monopoly: A natural monopoly arises when a single supplier is able to provide goods or services at lower costs than would be possible if multiple firms were operating in that same market. This may occur in industries such as utility companies (water, gas, electricity) due to high initial infrastructure costs required for new entrants, typically exploited by regulating prices rather than breaking up the firms’ monopoly (Burkett, 2006).
- Private Monopoly: A private monopoly occurs when a single privately-owned company controls a particular market niche to the extent that they wield significant power and influence over the market. Examples include Amazon in the online retail services industry and Google within search engines.
- Public Monopoly: In contrast, public monopolies are businesses owned by public entities like governments or municipalities where any industry is under complete government control. Public monopolies are usually found in critical sectors such as healthcare, utilities(electricity or water supply), postal services, and transportation industries (railways) (Moszoro, 2018).
- Legal Monopoly: In some cases, governments may grant exclusive rights to operate within certain areas through patent law, licensing agreements, or franchise agreements. This limits competition and creates legal monopolies such as pharmaceutical patents or public transit licenses (Coppo et al., 2020).
- Monopoly by Merger: Often occurs after mergers and acquisitions increase control of companies in markets with little competition, leading them to create dominant positions post-merger, notably observed in Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto.
- Technological Monopoly: A technological monopoly occurs when a company holds exclusive patent rights on a product or process, leading others unable to produce it without infringement penalties such as High-definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), held exclusively by HDMI Licensing LLC (Burkett, 2006).
- Geographic Monopoly: This type of monopoly occurs when a single company dominates a specific geographic area. This may be due to factors such as barriers to entry or limited demand within that region. For example, in smaller towns, there may only be one grocery store chain operating with no other competitors leading to its geographic monopoly over the local market.
- Government Monopoly: A government can also hold a monopoly on certain products or services – either by design or as a result of regulation and legislation. This is akin to legal monopolies but applied widely at the national level, such as state-owned industries like oil and natural resources extraction and access in countries like Russia (Anderson & Tollison, 1988).
- Monopolistic Competition: This hybridized form of monopoly and competitive market occurs when each producer has monopoly over their niche, but consumers can pivot to a related product that can also solve their problems.
Comprehension Checkpoint: In what cases do you think it is legitimate for a government to have a monopoly over goods, services, or entire industries? Steelman your position by writing five arguments defending the right for governments to have monopolies.Pros of Monopoly
Monopolies are quite beneficial market structures for producers due to economies of scale, R&D possibilities, marketing efficiency, price stability, and financial performance (Carare, 2011).
Let’s have a look at these benefits:
- Economies of Scale: Monopolies have the advantage of economies of scale due to their dominance within the industry, which tends to produce goods and services at a lower cost per unit, which can lead to lowering prices and hence increased affordability.
- Research & Development (R&D): Unconstrained by competitors, monopolies can invest heavily in R&D activities that could drive innovation and development. It leads to significant technological breakthroughs as opposed to competitive markets where firms may not have enough room for risky investments because they operate on small profit margins.
- Marketing Efficiency: Monopolists do fewer advertising battles since they are operating as the sole player within their industry. As such, they can focus on creating effective marketing campaigns that increase awareness without worrying about outdoing competitors.
- Price Stability: With no competition pushing prices down, monopolies tend towards stable pricing rather than constantly fluctuating, once common in competitive markets. This stability leads producers and consumers alike to make better decisions regarding strategic planning, given the predictability afforded through stable prices.
- Financial Performance: As dominant players operating without competitors within any particular industry, monopolies generally earn high profits due to their market power status, which can be reinvested into improving existing products/services or developing technological advancements.
Cons of Monopoly
While there are potential benefits to the monopolistic market structure, such as economies of scale and potential innovations, we must not ignore the several drawbacks associated with it (Carare, 2011).
Here is a quick look:
- Higher Prices: Monopolies can charge higher prices for their goods or services since there is no competition to push prices down. Consumers may end up paying more than they otherwise would in a competitive market.
- Reduced Consumer Choice: Due to its dominant position within an industry, a monopoly can dictate the terms of transactions between itself and consumers, including pricing. Thus many consumers are left without sufficient choice resulting in market failures that could worsen public welfare outcomes.
- Decreased Innovation: Monopolies may reduce incentives for innovation since they operate without threat from competitors and therefore have less motivation to improve their products or develop new ones through R&D.
- Barriers to Entry: Dominant players within any particular industry can create significant barriers to entry for new competitors who want to compete within the same space. Therefore, existing franchises ultimately lead to barriers limiting entrepreneurship aptitudes among young innovators/entrepreneurs aiming at investing their resources competitively.
- Socioeconomic Inequality Constraints: By holding all power over entire industries means monopolies have minimal accountability. This makes them take advantage of workers through underpayment, widening income inequality, and reducing purchasing power.
Comprehension Checkpoint: List five reasons why monopolistic companies have an unfair advantage and are able to create entry barriers into their market. Conclusion
Monopoly is a market structure where a single company or firm dominates an entire industry, producing goods or services without any close substitutes and effectively preventing competition.
The characteristics of a monopoly include complete control over the production and pricing of goods in an industry, creating high costs for potential competitors to enter the market, and resulting in restricted consumer choice as there are no other substitute products.
While monopolies can result in economies of scale, enhanced financial performance, marketing efficiency, stability, and increased innovation – the downsides may outweigh these benefits.
Monopoly can result in higher prices for consumers, reduced consumer choice, decreased incentives for innovation, increased barriers to entry for competitors, and socioeconomic inequality constraints.
It is crucial to understand the potential negative impacts of monopolies on consumer welfare when policymakers consider policies affecting industries operating under such market structures.
References
Anderson, G. M., & Tollison, R. D. (1988). Legislative monopoly and the size of government. Southern Economic Journal, 54(3), 529. https://doi.org/10.2307/1058999
Borobov, V. N., Bodnaruk, N. M., Budanova, I. M., & Golovin, V. V. (2021). The behavior of the company in the conditions of monopoly. Antitrust policy of the state. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, 27(3), 1452–1458. https://doi.org/10.47750/cibg.2021.27.03.196
Burkett, J. P. (2006). Microeconomics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Carare, P. M. (2011). Monopoly: Advantages and disadvantages. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1787089
Coppo, M., Lorenzoni, A., & Bano, L. (2020). Principles of electricity markets economics. Società Editrice Esculapio.
Moszoro, M. W. (2018). Public–Private monopoly. The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 18(2). https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2016-0314
Robinson, J. V. (1969). The economics of imperfect competition. Macmillan and Co., Limited.
Viktoriya Sus (MA)
Viktoriya Sus is an academic writer specializing mainly in economics and business from Ukraine. She holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Lviv National University and has more than 6 years of experience writing for different clients. Viktoriya is passionate about researching the latest trends in economics and business. However, she also loves to explore different topics such as psychology, philosophy, and more.
This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.