Market form

In economics, the main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market forms are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely. The major market forms are:

• Perfect competition, in which the market consists of a very large number of firms producing a homogenious product.
• Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of independent firms which have a very small proportion of the market share.
• Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms which own more than 40% of the market share.
• Oligopsony, a market dominated by many sellers and a few buyers.
• Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
• Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm.
• Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.

These somewhat abstract concerns tend to determine some but not all details of a specific concrete market system where buyers and sellers actually meet and commit to trade.

See also

• economics
• industrial organization
• microeconomics.
• macroeconomics..

External links

• Microeconomics by Elmer G. Wiens: Online Interactive Models of Oligopoly, Differentiated Oligopoly, and Monopolistic Competition