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When a monopoly occurs because it is more efficient for one firm to serve an entire market than for two or more firms to do so, because of the sort of economies of scale available in that market. A common example is water distribution, in which the main cost is laying a network of pipes to deliver water. One firm can do the job at a lower average cost per customer than two firms with competing networks of pipes. Monopolies can arise unnaturally by a firm acquiring sole ownership of a resource that is essential to the production of a good or service, or by a government granting a firm the legal right to be the sole producer. Other unnatural monopolies occur when a firm is much more efficient than its rivals for reasons other than economies of scale. Unlike some other sorts of monopoly, natural monopolies have little chance of being driven out of a market by more efficient new entrants. Thus regulation of natural monopolies may be needed to protect their captive consumers.
Industry:Economy
Shorthand for everything that is produced, earned or spent in a country (see GDP and GNP).
Industry:Economy
Shorthand for everything that is produced, earned or spent in a country (see GDP and GNP).
Industry:Economy
A market economy in which both private-sector firms and firms owned by government take part in economic activity. The proportions of public and private enterprise in the mix vary a great deal among countries. Since the 1980s, the public role in most mixed economies declined as nationalization gave way to privatization
Industry:Economy
When a market left to itself does not allocate resources efficiently. Interventionist politicians usually allege market failure to justify their interventions. Economists have identified four main sorts or causes of market failure. * The abuse of market power, which can occur whenever a single buyer or seller can exert significant influence over prices or output (see monopoly and monopsony). * externalities – when the market does not take into account the impact of an economic activity on outsiders. For example, the market may ignore the costs imposed on outsiders by a firm polluting the environment. * public goods, such as national defense. How much defense would be provided if it were left to the market? * Where there is incomplete or asymmetric information or uncertainty. Abuse of market power is best tackled through antitrust policy. Externalities can be reduced through regulation, a tax or subsidy, or by using property rights to force the market to take into account the welfare of all who are affected by an economic activity. The supply of public goods can be ensured by compelling everybody to pay for them through the tax system.
Industry:Economy
The difference made by one extra unit of something. Marginal revenue is the extra revenue earned by selling one more unit of something. The marginal price is how much extra a consumer must pay to buy one extra unit. Marginal utility is how much extra utility a person gets from consuming (or doing) an extra unit of something. The marginal product of labor is how much extra output a firm would get by employing an extra worker, or by getting an existing worker to put in an extra hour on the job. The marginal propensity to consume (or to save) measures by how much a household’s consumption (savings) would increase if its income rose by, say, $1. The marginal tax rate measures how much extra tax you would have to pay if you earned an extra dollar. The marginal cost (or whatever) can be very different from the average cost (or whatever), which simply divides total costs (or whatever) by the total number of units produced (or whatever). A common finding in microeconomics is that small incremental changes can matter enormously. In general, thinking “at the margin” often leads to better economic decision making than thinking about the averages. Alfred Marshall, the father of Neo-classical economics, based many of his theories of economic behavior on marginal rather than average behavior. For instance, given certain plausible assumptions, a profit-maximizing firm will increase production up to the point where marginal revenue equals marginal cost. This is because if marginal revenue exceeded marginal cost, the firm could increase its profit by producing an extra unit of output. Alternatively, if marginal cost exceeded marginal revenue, the firm could increase its profit by producing fewer units of output. In all walks of life, a basic rule of rational economic decision making is: do something only if the marginal utility you get from it exceeds the marginal cost of doing it.
Industry:Economy
When we are all dead, according to Keynes. Unimpressed by the thrust of classical economics, which said that economies have a long-run tendency to settle in equilibrium at full employment, he wanted economists to try to explain why in the short run economies are so often in disequilibrium, or in equilibrium at high levels of unemployment.
Industry:Economy
The rate of interest that top-quality banks charge each other for loans. As a result, it is often used by banks as a base for calculating the interest rate they charge on other loans. LIBOR is a floating rate, changing all the time.
Industry:Economy
Human life is priceless. But this has not stopped economists trying to put a financial value on it. One reason is to help firms and policymakers to make better decisions on how much to spend on costly safety measures designed to reduce the loss of life. Another is to help insurers and courts judge how much compensation to pay in the event of, say, a fatal accident. One way to value a life is to calculate a person’s human capital by working out how much he or she would earn were they to survive to a ripe old age. This could result in very different sums being paid to victims of the same accident. After an air crash, probably more money would go to the family of a first-class passenger than to that of someone flying economy. This may not seem fair. Nor would using this method to decide what to spend on safety measures, as it would mean much higher expenditure on avoiding the death of, say, an investment banker than on saving the life of a teacher or coal miner. It would also imply spending more on safety measures for young people and being positively reckless with the lives of retired people. Another approach is to analyze the risks that people are voluntarily willing to take, and how much they require to be paid for taking them. Taking into account differences in wages for high death-risk and low death-risk jobs, and allowing for differences in education, experience, and so on, it is possible to calculate roughly what value people put on their own lives. In industrialized countries, most studies using this method come up with a value of $5m–10m.
Industry:Economy
A production process that involves comparatively large amounts of labor; the opposite of capital intensive.
Industry:Economy
