monopoly & barriers to entry: revision notes
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Monopoly and Barriers to Entry
A2 Micro Economics
tutor2u November 2010
Long Run: Barriers to Entry
• Barriers to entry are designed to block potential entrants from entering a market profitablyfrom entering a market profitably
• Existing firms are known as incumbents
• New firms threaten the market share and monopoly rents of existing businesses
• Barriers to entry seek to protect the monopoly power of existing firms and therefore maintain supernormal (or abnormal) profits in the long runabnormal) profits in the long run
• Barriers to entry make a market less contestable – i.e. they affect market structure in the long run
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Types of Entry Barrier (1)
• (1) Structural barriers (Innocent Barriers) – due to differences in production costs and being in the market for some time
– Economies of scale (consider a natural monopoly)
– Vertical integration (backwards and forwards)
– Control of essential technologies / commodities
– Expertise and reputation of the incumbent
– Brand loyalty and brand proliferation
– Inherent suspicion among consumers about new ideasInherent suspicion among consumers about new ideas
• (2) Strategic barriers
– Predatory pricing / limit pricing
– Marketing / product differentiation
Types of Entry Barrier (2)
• (3) Statutory (legal) barriers ‐ entry barriers given force of lawlaw
– Licences (e.g. Professional qualifications, banking licences, licences to sell alcohol, run a night club etc)
– Patents (e.g. In the pharmaceutical industry)
– Copyrights and Trademarks
– Public franchises
– Tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions affecting imports of goods and services
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Patents
• Patents– Offers legal protection of
property rightsproperty rights – Generally valid for 12‐20 years– Give the owner an exclusive
right to prevent others from using patented products, inventions, or processes
– Protection of ‘intellectual property’.
– Patent licences can be sold to Patent licences can be sold to other producers and then cross‐licenced
– Designed to encourage innovation and invention
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Integration and Pricing Tactics
• Vertical Integration
– Control over supply chain and pp ydistribution
• Limit Pricing and Predatory Pricing
– Limit pricing involves lowering prices to a level that would force new entrants to operate at a loss (price < average cost)
– Sacrificing some short term gprofits but to restore and maintain supernormal profits in the long run
– Predatory pricing ‐ illegal
Cost Advantages and Marketing/Branding
• Absolute cost advantages– E.g. economies of scale
AC
– Lower unit costs for an established business
• Advertising and Marketing– Establishing branded products– Makes demand less elastic– Lowers cross price elasticity
• Brand ProliferationBrand proliferation disguises
SAC1
SAC2
SAC3
– Brand proliferation disguises from consumers the actual concentration in markets such as detergents, confectionery and household goods.
LRAC
Output
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Barriers to Exit
• There are costs associated with exiting an industry
• (1) Asset‐write‐offs• (1) Asset‐write‐offs
– E.G. plant and machinery, stocks
• (2) Closure costs
– Redundancy costs, contracts with suppliers
– Penalty costs from ending leasing arrangements
• (3) Lost reputation( ) p
– Lost goodwill, damage to the brand
• Sunk costs are costs incurred when entering a market that are irrecoverable should a firm decide to leave
Reducing entry barriers
• Technological change in markets– Impact of disruptive technologies
• Removal of statutory barriers – e.g. the liberalisation of markets– Utilities
• Postal services
• Electricity
• Gas
– Banking / Financeg /
• Globalisation of markets– Emergence of foreign competition
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