Economics 111.3 Winter 14 April 2 nd, 2014 Lecture 30 Ch. 13: Pure monopoly.

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Economics 111.3 Winter 14 April 2 nd , 2014 Lecture 30 Ch. 13: Pure monopoly

Transcript of Economics 111.3 Winter 14 April 2 nd, 2014 Lecture 30 Ch. 13: Pure monopoly.

Economics 111.3 Winter 14

April 2nd, 2014Lecture 30

Ch. 13: Pure monopoly

FINAL EXAM is based on chapters 3, 4, 5 (up to p. 116), 6 (up to p. 138), 8, 9, 10 (up to p. 230, 11, 12, 13, and 14Its format: 100 Multiple-Choice

Questions When and Where: April 21, from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m; STM 140Extra Office Hours: April 19, from1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Final Exam:

Comparing Monopoly and Perfect Competition and the Inefficiency of Monopolya recap

Points of Interest

Regulating a monopoly: an introductory note

• Government may regulate the prices that the monopoly charges.–The allocation of resources will be

efficient if price is set to equal marginal cost (P = MC). This is called the “socially optimal price”, and regulation is called “socially optimum”

Q

DMR

MCATC

P

unregulatedmonopoly price

unregulatedmonopoly priceM

Qm

Pri

ce a

nd

Co

sts

Pm

Natural Monopoly Case

Regulated Monopoly: Natural Monopoly Case

Instead of Socially Optimum Price (where P = MC)We use Fair Return Price ( where P = ATC)

Q

DMR

MCATC

PSocially Optimal Price

Price = MC

Socially Optimal PricePrice = MC

M

Qm Qr

Pri

ce a

nd

Co

sts

Pm

Pr r

Q

DMR

MCATC

PSocially Optimal Price

Price = MC

Socially Optimal PricePrice = MC

M

Qm Qr

Pri

ce a

nd

Co

sts

Pm

Pr rLOSS

Answer the following questions:

A. If the company were to build the bridge, what would be its profit-maximizing price?

B. What would be the efficient level of output? Should the company build the bridge? What would be its profit?

Let us focus on consumer surplus

PRICE DISCRIMINATION

Price discrimination is based on differences in “willingness to pay”

• The key idea behind price discrimination is to convert consumer surplus into economic profit for the monopoly.

• Price discrimination is the business practice of selling the same good at different prices to different customers, even though the costs for producing for the two customers are the same.

NB!In order to price discriminate, a monopolist must be able to:

• Identify groups of customers who have different willingness to pay (elasticities of demand);

• Separate them in some way; and • Limit their ability to resell its product

between groups.