Monopolistic Competition And Potato Chips

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Monopolistic Competition and Potato Chips A goal in business with a simple perspective is to keep one foot in front of the other and always be one step ahead of competition. In order to stay one step ahead of competition businesses have to maintain a competitive edge in order to keep prices low and profits high. In order to do this production costs must be similar to competitors or cheaper and methods of production should be simpler as well. We take the potato chip industry for example: Lays brand Potato chips are mass produced and have a pretty competitive market. Kettle chips and Ruffles are some of Lays competitors. Our book defines equilibrium in a market as “When supply meets demand of the product and there is no excess.”(Case, Fair, & Oster, 2009) Potato chip firm recently bought up by two lawyers in the Northwest has created a monopoly after competing in a monopolistic market. The market was originally said to be a long-run equilibrium where we mentioned supply meets demand. A long-run equilibrium is defined “The point at which every firm reaches in the long-run that the firm’s economic profit will equal zero.” (Case, Fair, & Oster, 2009) The industry was operating in a monopolistic competitive market and had each firm was earning a normal rate of return because products were meeting demand and had been equally competitive. When the firms are all having a normal return rate we assume that each type of chip brand was meeting its supply and demand for the consumer. Since the small firms have all been combined as one they are no longer competing against one another, but can offer more to consumers by providing a different product from the same company. Many different benefits come from having a monopoly within business that is why it is considered an unfair advantage to a degree and is illegal for business to completely control an industry through

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