Sources of monopoly power are identified, the model of choice in monopoly is described, and some instances of desirable monopolies are discussed. Finally, monopoly and perfect competition are compared. Available Week 10. The former describes a market similar to perfect competition, the difference being that in monopolistic competition the firms produce differentiated products. The unit describes the economic model of how firms in this kind of market make their choices and compares this market with perfect competition and monopoly.
Oligopoly is big business - markets that contain only a small number of relatively large firms.
The unit will also describe the public policies that has been put into place to try to reduce the power of big business - in particular, antitrust laws. Available Week 11. The second test over units 7 through 9 must be taken by the end of the twelfth week of the semester. All of these questions, and more, are addressed in unit 10. Available Week 13.