Monopolistic Competition and Efficiency
How does Monopolistic Competition Affect Efficiency?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 23rd, 2024
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How does Monopolistic Competition Affect Efficiency?
The long-term result of entry and exit in a perfectly competitive market is that all firms end up selling at the price level determined by the lowest point on the average cost curve. This outcome is why perfect competition displays productive efficiency: goods are produced at the lowest possible average cost. However, in monopolistic competition, the end result of entry and exit is that firms end up with a price that lies on the downward-sloping portion of the average cost curve, not at the very bottom of the AC curve. Thus, monopolistic competition will not be productively efficient.
A monopolistically competitive industry does not display productive or allocative efficiency in either the short run, when firms are making economic profits and losses, nor in the long run, when firms are earning zero profits.
In a perfectly competitive market, each firm produces at a quantity where price is set equal to marginal cost, both in the short and long run. This outcome is why perfect competition displays allocative efficiency: the social benefits of additional production, as measured by the marginal benefit, which is the same as the price, equal the marginal costs to society of that production. In a monopolistically competitive market, the rule for maximizing profit is to set MR = MC—and price is higher than marginal revenue, not equal to it because the demand curve is downward sloping. When P > MC, which is the outcome in a monopolistically competitive market, the benefits to society of providing additional quantity, as measured by the price that people are willing to pay, exceed the marginal costs to society of producing those units. A monopolistically competitive firm does not produce more, which means that society loses the net benefit of those extra units. This is the same argument we made about monopoly, but in this case the allocative inefficiency will be smaller. Thus, a monopolistically competitive industry will produce a lower quantity of a good and charge a higher price for it than would a perfectly competitive industry.
Related Topics
- Market Structure
- Perfect Competition
- Bidding War
- Complements & Substitutes
- Substitution Effect
- Imperfect Competition
- Market Power
- Price Takers
- Price Makers
- Perfect Competition and Decision Making
- X-Efficiency
- Captive Market
- Contestable Market Theory
- Highest Profit Point in a Perfectly Competitive Market
- Marginal Revenue
- Using Marginal Revenue and Marginal Costs to Maximize Profit
- Marginal Revenue Curve
- Profit Margin and Average Total Cost
- Break Even Point - Cost Curve
- Shutdown Point - Cost Curve
- Short-Run Decisions Based Upon Costs in a Perfectly Competitive Market
- Marginal Costs and the Supply Curve for a Perfectively Competitive Firm
- Long-Run Average Supply (LRAS)
- Decisions to Enter or Exit a Market in the Long Run
- Long-Run Equilibrium in a Perfectly Competitive Market
- Constant, Increasing, and Decreasing Cost Industries
- Productive and Allocative Efficiency in Perfectly Competitive Markets
- Market Efficiency
- Market Inefficiency
- Pareto Efficiency
- Market Failure
- Search Theory
- Monopoly
- Natural Monopoly
- Legal Monopoly
- Bilateral Monopoly
- Promoting Innovation through Intellectual Property
- Predatory Pricing
- How Monopolists Set Price with the Demand Curve
- Total Cost and Total Revenue for a Monopolist
- Marginal Revenue and Marginal Cost for a Monopolist
- Inefficiency of Monopoly
- Perfectly Competitive Market
- Monopolistic Competition
- Duopoly
- Oligopoly
- Differentiated Products
- Perceived Demand for a Monopolistic Competitor
- Monopolistic Competitors Choose Price and Quantity
- Monopolistic Competitors and Entry
- Monopolistic Competition and Efficiency
- Cartel (Economics)
- Game Theory
- Traveler's Dilemma
- Prisoner's Dilemma
- Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma
- Nash Equilibrium
- Diner's Dilemma
- Trembling Hand Perfect Equilibrium
- Gambler's Fallacy
- Arrows Impossibility Theorem
- Backward Induction
- Tournament Theory
- Oligopoly and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
- Forcing Cooperation in a Prisoner’s Dilemma
- Cooperation and the Kinked Demand Curve
- Corporate Merger or Acquisition
- Antitrust Laws
- Herfindahl-Hirschman Index
- Concentration Ratio
- Other Approaches to Measuring Monopoly Power in an Industry
- Restrictive Practices under Antitrust Law
- Natural Monopoly
- Cost-Plus Regulation
- Price Cap Regulation
- Regulatory Capture