NATURAL MONOPOLY: A special type of monopoly that's able to lower its price when it produces and sells a larger quantity. This somewhat remarkable ability results because a natural monopoly uses a great deal of capital. In that capital carries an up front cost that must be paid regardless of production, a natural monopoly can spread these costs over larger quantity--if it produces more. The larger the quantity sold, the lower the cost for each unit. A single natural monopoly is thus able to produce and supply a good at a lower cost, and price, than two or more firms. In other words, if two or more firms try to supply the same good, the market will "naturally" end up with just one.

     See also | monopoly | market control | capital | regulation | average-cost pricing | marginal-cost pricing | industry regulation | regulation | public utility |

NATURAL MONOPOLY, AmosWEB GLOSS*arama, http://www.AmosWEB.com, AmosWEB LLC, 2000-2024. [Accessed: October 13, 2024].

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To avoid competition, oligopolistic firms are occasionally inclined to cooperate through collusion. Collusion occurs when two or more oligopolistic firms jointly agree to control market prices and quantity and to generally act like a monopoly. Colluding firms set a price and produce a quantity that maximizes industry-wide economic profit, the same price and quantity that would be selected by a profit-maximizing monopoly. Once the industry-wide price and production are determined, each individual firm produces the quantity of output that equates the marginal cost of the firm to the marginal revenue for the industry.

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