Talk:Monopsony

message: - Im changing the intro section to include a reference to "monopsony-power" being used to refer to situations of not only a single buyer, but where individual buyers face an upwardly sloping supply curve. I think this is important because when one talks of "monopoly power" it is taken for granted that one can mean a situation with dominance (but not single buyer), but too many people seem to think "monopsony power" refers only to a single buyer. 
I don't think the analysis of why wages would be maximized under perfect competition was correct. IMO, there was unjustified emphasis on this assertion that, for reasons unclear, the supply of labor would be perfectly elastic in a competitive market, though not under a monopsony. But the labor supply curve is independent of what's happening on the demand side. What actually changed was that the prior monopsonist could no longer maintain his low wages because his employees would be poached by a competitor. Competition drives wages to equilibrium.
--Rmalloy 04:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: monopsony-power

message: Someone has added a bit which says: "Monosophonies of course occur in goods only purchased by the government, such as roads and certain weapons (thouigh the former may face competition between levels of government)". Mispelling "Monosophonies" a part, this is true for the "naked" definition, but not for the model. The latter refers in fact to a purchaser who is a profit maximiser. It is only within such model that monopsony leads to a well-defined and measurable allocation problem. Thus the added bit appears to be essentially misleading. I'll wait a few days and then, if nobody produces some counter-argument, I'll remove it. -- Mario 17:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I came here looking for exactly this sort of information: what sorts of market problems occur when government is the monopsonist. --Error28 19:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Public" monopsony ? 

message: I'd like to see some historical examples here, if possible.
What about Wal-mart?
For info on Wal-Mart as monopsonist, see Barry C. Lynn's article in the July 2006 Harper's
: That's quite a stretch. In order o fit the definition, Sears, Target, Zellers, Kmart, and every store that sells good in the United States would have to go out of business. BTW Damn you Walmart for selling affordable goods to the population! We'll get you for that. JettaMann (talk) 02:48, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples?

message: Could we please have a graph of a competative labor market, so as to be able to compare it to the monopsony graph. 
Ditto for having examples from product markets and not just labor markets. 129.10.244.54 02:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples Part II

message: Is it just me or does this article sound like an academic paper designed for economists? Would it be possible to water down the syntax so the average joe like myself can understand it?
: Agreed.  I thought I was an educated bloke until I met the term "upwardly-sloping supply curve" in the very first sentence of the overview.  Jargon-laden econonomics and hair-splitting definition are fine for later sections, but the introductory portions need to become more encyclopedic.  I'll see if I can at least clean up the introduction for general readers.  SpaceToast (talk) 02:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Rephrasing?

message: Theory is all well and good, but how does this play out in terms of historical examples? Interesting ones outside the staid realms of modern-day mega-corporations would be wonderful. To what extent can the Dutch East India Company or British East India Company be considered to have been monopsonistic? LordAmeth 19:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Examples III 

message: I was surprised to find no discussion of the possible penalty a monopsonist might suffer. The example I have in mind is that of NASA which has to buy launchers (rockets) from US companies. There are only two builders of large launchers at  present, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Their prices are high compared with non-US suppliers, eg the Russian Proton launcher. To some extent NASA is unable to bargain for better prices because there are no other customers to set a market rate. The non-US launch companies don't seem to provide this 'reality check' on prices. NASA's monopsonist position is only approximately correct because the US military is the largest customer for these launchers, but as both are branches of the US government there is at root only one customer. Has this monopsonist penalty effect been discussed in the economics literature?
131.142.52.215 19:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is there a monopsonist penalty? 

message: I am a beginner student of economics and it was not immediately obvious to me why a monopsonic employer would need to increase the wage rate of all employees to add a new worker. I looked this up elsewhere and determined that this can be more easily and clearly explained as follows: 
:It should be noticed that this marginal cost is higher than the wage w(L) paid to the new worker by the amount
:    (Formula omitted) 
:This is because the firm has to increase the wage paid to all the workers it already employs whenever it hires an extra worker. As it is the sole buyer of all labor in the industry, attracting new workers requires increasing the overall wage rate so that new laborers enter the industry.
Is this sensible? If so, should it be added to the explanation?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.172.243.190 (talk) 01:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation of Rising Marginal Cost of Employment 

message: I came away from the page more confused than before going to it.
Where is the explanation that gives a good overview without going into minute details?  
Why is most of the article focused on a single example (labor) using equations, graphs, and details meaningless to someone looking for a good overview of the term? (I'm sure there's probably flags that should be added to show that this article needs fixing, but I'm not a wikipedia junkie and don't know how to do that.)
Contrast this page with Oligopoly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligopoly  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.228.6.77 (talk) 05:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with the anon commenter 173.228.6.77.  The article has a title that would imply it would cover monopsony more broadly, which could occur in many types of markets, and then explicates only the labor market aspects of that concept.  N2e (talk) 16:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a page on labor, or an economic term? 

message: "A monopoly is an individual seller selling to multiple buyers."
    Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!  
 "A monopoly is an individual seller selling to multiple buyers."
Right......................
So one person, selling their car to the public on craigslist, is a monopoly...............
DOH! 
PEOPLE - PLEASE THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU  ARE SAYING!!!!!!!  
REMEMBER THE READERS CAN ONLY READ THE WORDS THAT ACTUALLY APPEAR ON THE PAGE. THEY CAN'T READ ANY OF THE INFORMATION THATS IN YOUR HEAD.
Dear authorS, (I deliberately did not look up who wrote that part because this issue is one that affects so many articles on WP that one specific person doing it it is not the problem.  Its a systemic issue! )
Please remember that the readers who do not initially understand or who are not already familiar with this topic area WILL NOT UNDERSTAND that you have IMPLICITLY ASSUMED that the reader will understand that inside your head, YOU are adding the phrase "IN AN OTHERWISE WELL POPULATED MARKET, WHERE MARKET MEANS A LARGE NUMBER OF BUYERS AND/OR SELLERS TRADING IN THE SAME PRODUCT AREA" to your definitions and descriptive phrases.
GRRrrrr. grrr. 
:-)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.63.225.18 (talk) 22:28, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  ARRRRGHHH! 

message: This is what we have in our textbooks... and it is because it makes sense! MR=p*MPL and not MRP, which is equal to MR*MPL (what you're basically saying is MR=MR*MPL, which is nonsense). Source: Hal Varian's textbook of microeconomics.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ernetas (talk • contribs) 06:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  MR=MC not at MRP=MC, but at VMP=MC 

message: Dr. Ransom has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:
We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.
Dr. Ransom has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:
*Reference 1: Ashenfelter, Orley & Farber, Henry & Ransom, Michael R., 2010. "Modern Models of Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Brief Survey," IZA Discussion Papers 4915, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
*Reference 2: Ransom, Michael R. & Sims, David P., 2009. "Estimating the Firm's Labor Supply Curve in a "New Monopsony" Framework: School Teachers in Missouri," IZA Discussion Papers 4271, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 17:04, 19 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dr. Ransom's comment on this article 

message: Could some layman's explanation be included? Perhaps the scope of the article is too complicated, or maybe it would look jumbled having both, I don't know. Just bringing this up as a thought. 63.248.183.82 (talk) 23:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked and saw there is a Simple English article on Monopsony. Although currently there is just a simple brief explanation, perhaps that's where I should look to. Ignore my previous thought. 63.248.183.82 (talk) 23:16, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Layman 

message: The article seems to use the word "monopsonistic" to mean both monopsonistic (many consumers to few producers) and monopsony-ish. This is a common mistake with "monopoly," people misuse "monopolistic" to mean "monopoloid." Is "monopsonoid" a real word? If not, can we, as the people who continuously invent the English language, make it one? Because it clearly should be. Daniel J. Hakimi (talk) 21:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Monopsonoid vs. Monopsonistic 

message: It was noted that the empirical evidence section didn't cite any sources and does seem to be an academic discussion of effects rather than a review of the evidence.  Here is my suggested update.  I'll, of course, cite the sources in the correct format in the published form.  Let me know if there are any concerns.  Squatch347 (talk) 18:03, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Update to Empirical Evidence 

message: I have attempted to make this article clearer and easier to read. I have found multiple sources and ammended some sections that required further citation and context. Let me know if any other areas could use some more work.Relox1 (talk) 14:46, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: These were good edits, thanks for the contribution.  I made some small changes to the paragraph you added about dynamic monopsony models (which was an excellent addition btw).  I'm not sure we should include the UA link in that para though as it is a set of teaching notes, not a RS.  Squatch347 (talk) 18:16, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Review and edit of article

message: Hi Assessing the article for an Economics University course. I have listed some possible amendments below and will continue to run through whole article. Let me know what if you think I've over edited or can improve any sections.
Rewording of first paragraph for ease of reading.
INTRO
In economics, a monopsony (from Ancient Greek μόνος (mónos) "single" + ὀψωνία (opsōnía) "purchase") is a market structure in which a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services offered by many would-be sellers.
Followed by:
Current: In the microeconomic theory of monopsony, a single entity is assumed to have market power over sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service, much in the same manner that a monopolist can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, in which only one seller faces many buyers.
Propossed: The microeconomic theory of monopsony assumes a single entity to have market power over all sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service. This is a simular power to that of a monopolist, which can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, where multiple buyers have only one seller of a good or service available to purchase from.
HISTORY
Reference for first paragragh History. I realise there is link to the Authors Wikipage. Does it still require a reference?
Current: Monopsony theory was developed by economist Joan Robinson in her book The Economics of Imperfect Competition (1933)
Proposed: Monopsony theory was developed by economist Joan Robinson in her book The Economics of Imperfect Competition (1933)
Current: A classic theoretical example is a mining town, where the company that owns the mine is able to set wages low since they face no competition from other employers in hiring workers, because they are the only employer in the town, and geographic isolation or obstacles prevent workers from seeking employment in other locations.
Proposed: A classic theoretical example is a mining town, where the company that owns the mine has no external competition for labour hire, as they are the only employers in the town. Due to the lack of competion in the labour market, the towns geographic isolation or other obstacles prevent workers from seeking employment elsewhere the mining company is able to set the wage lower than would be expected in a competitive market.
Relox1 (talk) 05:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ammendment suggestions for Article

message: Still requiring some referrencing particurlary in the Welfare Implication section. Some sections could benifit from re-wording as whole paragraph: individual concepts withing seem disjointed.Relox1 (talk) 05:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessed Article