Module 4
Module 4
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
& THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM
PUBADECS
By:
Mr. Erick P. Mante
Module 4
Competition and Market Structures
PUBADECS – Public Administration & the Economic System | Module 4 | Mr. ERICK P. MANTE 1
TARGET LEARNING OUTCOMES
This module emphasizes that inadequate competition,
inadequate information, immobile resources, public goods, and
externalities can lead to market failures. It also highlights the
economic functions of government in a market economy.
Students are expected to be able to:
INTRODUCTION
hen Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth
W of Nations in 1776, the average factory was small, and businesses were
competitive. Laissez-faire, the French term that means “allow them to do,” was the
prevailing philosophy that limited government’s role to protecting property, enforcing
contracts, settling disputes, and protecting firms against foreign competition.
Conditions are much different today. An industry, or the supply side of the market, has
many firms of different sizes producing slightly different products. These conditions help
determine market structure, or the nature and degree of competition among firms doing
business in the same industry. Economists group firms into four different market
structures that reflect the competitive conditions in those markets.
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LESSON 1: Perfect Competition
Necessary Conditions
The first condition is that there must be a large number of buyers and sellers. No single
buyer or seller is large enough or powerful enough to single-handedly affect the price.
The second condition is that buyers and sellers deal in identical products. With no
difference in the products, there is no need for brand names and no need to advertise,
which keeps prices low. With no differences between products, one seller’s merchandise
is just as good as another’s.
The third condition is that each buyer and seller act independently. This ensures that
sellers compete against one another for the consumer’s pesos, and that consumers
compete against one another to obtain the best price.
The fourth condition is that buyers and sellers are reasonably well-informed about
products and prices. Well-informed buyers shop at the stores that have the lowest prices.
Well-informed sellers match the lowest prices of their competitors to avoid losing
customers.
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The fifth condition is that buyers and sellers are free to enter into, conduct, or get out of
business. This freedom makes it difficult for producers in any industry to keep the market
to themselves. Producers have to keep prices competitive, or new firms can take away
some of their business. Collectively, these conditions help ensure the competition that is
necessary to keep prices low and quality high.
Profit Maximization
Under perfect competition, market supply
and demand set the equilibrium price for
the product. Because the price is
determined in the market, and because
each firm by itself is too small to influence
the market price, the perfect competitor is
often called a “price taker.” The firm then
must find the level of output it can produce
that will maximize its profits.
A Theoretical Situation
Few perfectly competitive markets exist because it is difficult to satisfy all five necessary
conditions. Local vegetable farming, sometimes called “truck” farming, comes close.
In these markets many sellers offer nearly identical products. Individual sellers are
generally unable to control prices, and both buyers and sellers have reasonable
knowledge of most products and prices. Finally, anyone who wants to enter the business
by growing tomatoes, corn, or other products can easily do so.
When markets are perfectly competitive, several things combine to keep prices low. For
example, when everyone is dealing with identical products, there is no need to advertise,
which keeps the cost down. Second, when the products that everyone sells are identical,
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there is no reason for one seller to charge a price higher than anyone else. If the seller
does try to charge a higher price, buyers will simply go elsewhere.
Third, if there are a large number of independent buyers and sellers, then no single buyer
is big enough to push the price down and no single seller is big enough to force the price
up. As a result, buyers will always try to purchase from the seller with the lowest price.
Finally, if it is easy for sellers to enter or leave the market, then new sellers can always
come in if they think they can make a profit. Likewise, sellers who cannot match the new
competition are free to leave.
Imperfect Competition
Although perfect competition is rare, it is important because economists use it to evaluate
other, less competitive, market structures. Imperfect competition is the name given to
any of three market structures—monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly—that
lacks one or more of the conditions required for perfect competition. Most firms and
industries in the Philippines today fall into one of these categories. When you examine
imperfect competition, you will see that it results in less competition, higher prices for
consumers, and fewer products offered. This is why perfectly competitive markets are
theoretically ideal situations that can be used to evaluate other market structures.
It shares all the conditions of perfect competition except the same goods or services.
Monopolistic competition is the market structure that has all the conditions of perfect
competition except for identical products. Under monopolistic competition, products are
generally similar and include things such as designer clothing, cosmetics, and shoes. The
monopolistic aspect is the seller’s ability to raise the price within a narrow range. The
competitive aspect is that if sellers raise or lower the price enough, customers will ignore
minor differences and change brands.
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Product Differentiation
Monopolistic competition is characterized by
product differentiation—real or perceived
differences between competing products in
the same industry. Most items produced
today—from the many brands of athletic
footwear to personal computers—are
differentiated.
Nonprice Competition
To make their products stand out, monopolistic competitors try to make consumers aware
of product differences. They do this with nonprice competition—the use of advertising,
giveaways, or other promotions designed to convince buyers that the product is somehow
unique or fundamentally better than a competitor’s.
Profit Maximization
The profit maximizing behavior of the monopolistic competitor is no different from that of
other firms. The firm will expand its production until its marginal cost is equal to its
marginal revenue, or where MC = MR. If the firm’s advertising convinces consumers that
its product is better, then it can charge a higher price. If not, the firm must charge less.
Finally, it is easy for firms to enter the monopolistically competitive industry. Each new
firm makes a product only a little different from others on the market. The result is a large
number of firms producing a variety of similar products.
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LESSON 3: Oligopoly
Interdependent Behavior
Because oligopolists are so large, whenever one firm acts, the other firms in the industry
usually follow—or they run the risk of losing customers. For example, when Chrysler
introduced the first minivan, other companies soon followed.
The tendency of oligopolists to act together often shows up in their pricing behavior, such
as copying a competitor’s price reduction in order to attract new customers. For example,
if Ford or General Motors announces zero-interest financing or thousands of dollars back
on each new car purchased, its competitors will match the promotion almost immediately.
In extreme cases this can lead to a price war, or a series of price cuts that result in
unusually low prices.
Because oligopolists usually act together when it comes to changing prices, many firms
prefer to compete on a nonprice basis by enhancing their products with new or different
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features. Automobile companies do this every year when they introduce models. If an
oligopolist finds a way to enhance a product, its competitors are at a disadvantage for a
period of time. After all, it takes longer to develop a new physical attribute for a product
than it does to match a price cut.
Profit Maximization
The oligopolist, like any other firm, maximizes its profits when it finds the quantity of output
where its marginal cost is equal to its marginal revenue, or where MC = MR. The
oligopolist will then charge the price consistent with this level of sales. Because of all the
nonprice competition, the product’s final price is likely to be higher than it would be under
monopolistic competition, and much higher than it would be under perfect competition.
Nonprice competition is always expensive for a firm, and these expenses usually come
back to the consumer in the form of higher prices.
LESSON 4: Monopoly
At the opposite end of the spectrum from perfect competition is monopoly. A monopoly
is a market structure with only one seller of a particular product. This situation—like that
of perfect competition—is an extreme case. In fact, the Philippine economy has very few,
if any, cases of pure monopoly—although the local cable TV operator or telephone
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company may come close. But a good example are Energy (Meralco) and Water
(Manila/Maynilad) industry.
Even the telephone company, however, faces competition from other communication
companies, from the from Internet providers that supply e-mail and telephone services.
Local cable providers face competition from video rental stores, satellite cable systems,
and the Internet. Consequently, when people talk about monopolies, they usually mean
near-monopolies.
We have few monopolies today because Filipinos traditionally have disliked them and
have tried to outlaw them. Another reason is that new technologies often introduce
products that compete with existing monopolies. The development of the fax machine
before allowed businesses to send electronic letters that competed with the Postal
Service. Later, e-mail became even more popular than the fax. Today, telephone service
over the Internet is yet another technology challenging phone monopolies.
Types of Monopolies
Sometimes the nature of a good or service
dictates that society would be served best by a
monopoly. A natural monopoly—a market
situation where the costs of production are
minimized by having a single firm produce the
product—is one such case.
Natural monopolies often can provide services more cheaply than several competing
firms could. For example, two or more competing telephone companies serving the same
area would be inefficient if each company needed its own telephone poles and lines.
Public utility companies fall into this category because it would be wasteful to duplicate
the networks of pipes and wires that distribute water, gas, and electricity throughout a
city. To avoid these problems, the government often gives a public utility company a
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franchise—the exclusive right to do business in a certain area without competition. By
accepting such franchises, the companies also accept a certain amount of government
regulation.
The justification for the natural monopoly is that a larger firm can often use its personnel,
equipment, and plant more efficiently. This results in economies of scale, a situation in
which the average cost of production falls as the firm gets larger. When this happens, it
makes sense for the firm to be as large as is necessary to lower its production costs.
Still another kind of monopoly is the government monopoly—a monopoly owned and
operated by the government. Government monopolies are found at all the levels of
government—national, state, and local. In most cases they involve products or services
that private industry cannot adequately supply.
Many towns and cities have monopolies that oversee water use. Some states control
alcoholic beverages by requiring that they be sold only through state stores. The national
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government controls the processing of weapons-grade uranium for military and national
security purposes.
Profit Maximization
Monopolies maximize profits the same way other firms do: they equate marginal cost with
marginal revenue to find the profit-maximizing quantity of output. Even so, there are
differences between the monopolist and other profit-maximizing firms—especially the
perfect competitor.
First, the monopolist is much larger than the perfect competitor. This is because there is
only one firm—the monopolist—supplying the product, rather than thousands of smaller
ones. Second, both because of its large size and the lack of meaningful competition, the
monopolist is able to behave as a “price maker.” This differs from the perfect competitor,
who faces competition and is a price taker.
Because there are no competing firms in the industry, there is no equilibrium price facing
the monopolist. In order for the monopolist to maximize its profits, it will do exactly as all
the other firms have done: it will equate MC with MR because this method always shows
the level of output that produces the highest total profits. The result will be a very high
price—higher than would be charged under conditions of perfect competition,
monopolistic competition, or oligopoly.
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the PSE and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate the listed
firm. They uncovered several stock manipulation strategies. The PSE’s findings showed
that BW owner Dante Tan and other brokers were manipulating BW stock through
fraudulent "wash sales," a situation when the seller and buyer are the same. The aim was
to create the illusion of an active market in a particular stock.
Tan was a friend of Estrada and was one of the biggest campaign contributors when
Estrada first ran for president in 1998. During the impeachment trial of Estrada, former
Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu testified that Estrada profited from selling them when
the share price ballooned. The scandal had caused investors to shy away from the stock
market, bringing trading volumes to record lows.
These news stories showed clearly that a competitive free enterprise economy works best
when several conditions, including adequate information, are met. If we want to avoid
problems like this in the future, we need to be able to identify and then deal with different
types of market failures.
Inadequate Competition
Over time, mergers and acquisitions result in larger and fewer firms dominating various
industries. The decrease in competition tends to reduce the efficient use of scarce
resources—resources that could be put to other, more productive uses if they were
available. For example, why would a firm with few or no competitors have the incentive
to use its resources carefully?
Inadequate competition can occur on both the demand and supply sides of the market. If
we consider the supply side of the market, there is no competition when a monopolist
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dominates. In an oligopolistic market, the temptation to collude is strong. If we look at the
demand side of the market, there is little or no competition if the government is the only
buyer for space shuttles, hydroelectric dams, super computers, M-1 tanks, or high-
technology fighter jets.
Inadequate Information
If resources are to be allocated efficiently, everyone—consumers, business people, and
government officials—must have adequate information about market conditions. A
secretary or an accountant may receive a competitive wage in the automobile industry,
but wages for the same skills might be higher in the insurance or banking industry.
The consequences of inadequate information may not always be immediately visible, but
in the long run it will put a slow drain on the economy, lowering the rate of growth and the
overall standard of living.
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Resource Immobility
A difficult problem in any economy is that of resource immobility. This means that land,
capital, labor, and entrepreneurs do not move to markets where returns are the highest.
Instead they tend to stay put and sometimes remain unemployed.
What happens, for example, when a large auto assembly plant, steel mill, or mine closes,
leaving hundreds of workers without employment? Certainly some workers can find jobs
in other industries, but not all can. Some of the newly unemployed may not be able to sell
their homes. Others may not want to move away from friends and relatives to find new
jobs in other cities.
Public Goods
Another form of market failure shows up in the form of public goods. Public goods are
products that are collectively consumed by everyone. Their use by one individual does
not diminish the satisfaction or value available to others. Examples of public goods are
uncrowded highways, floodcontrol measures, national defense, and police and fire
protection.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it was evident that the floodwalls in New Orleans
could not sustain the onslaught of the hurricane. Floodwalls are public goods that are
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normally funded out of government expenditures; they are not built by the private sector
because there is little profit to be gained by building them. A related problem is that
government does not always see the need to spend tax dollars on public goods. In the
case of the floodwalls, it was all too easy to postpone the necessary expenditures
because they would have resulted in higher taxes or in not building other public goods.
Externalities
Many activities generate some kind of externality, or unintended side effect that either
benefits or harms a third party not involved in the activity that caused it.
A positive externality is a benefit someone receives who was not involved in the activity
that generated the benefit. For example, people living on the other side of town may
benefit from the additional jobs generated by the airport expansion, or a nearby restaurant
may sell more meals and hire more workers. Both the restaurant owners and the new
workers gain from the airport expansion even though they had nothing to do with the
expansion in the first place.
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Dealing with Externalities
Externalities indicate a market failure and can be
corrected with government action. The problem with
externalities is that they distort the decisions made by
consumers and producers. Overall this makes the
economy less efficient.
The negative externality of pollution generated several problems. Firms had the incentive
to pollute because it was the most profitable way to produce. The low prices also
encouraged more sales, and hence more pollution. Finally, people living downstream
from the polluting firms were, in effect, paying for some of the production costs even if
they did not necessarily buy the products.
Suppose the government decided to force the firms to clean up their pollution by putting
a ₱50 “pollution tax” on every unit of output sold. The firms, of course, would try to pass
some of this expense on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. While higher prices
might at first seem to be a problem, they would force the people who bought the products
to pay for the increase in production costs.
The tax would help alleviate pollution problems. First, all firms would have less incentive
to pollute because the tax drives up the price of their products. Second, higher prices
would reduce the quantity demanded, so firms would produce less and therefore generate
less pollution. Third, the people living downstream of the affected rivers would face less
pollution.
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Correcting Positive Externalities
Externalities can be positive as well as negative. You have learned that negative
externalities lead to distortions. Yet even when externalities are positive, so that
uninvolved third parties experience beneficial side effects, distortions can occur.
A classic example is education. We know that people generally earn more when they
have more education. In addition, a community with a well-educated workforce will attract
more industry, have more economic development, and enjoy a higher standard of living.
For these and other reasons, it makes sense for the government to subsidize the cost of
public education.
This is exactly what happens when local governments pay for the cost of primary and
secondary public education. When it comes to the higher education offered by state
universities, however, state governments only pay for part of the cost, leaving students to
pick up the rest in the form of tuition payments.
Given education’s value to the community, many experts feel that the government
subsidies should be larger than they are. This is expensive, however, so government
tends to underfund higher education even though more subsidies are warranted.
We know that resources are scarce, and because of scarce resources we have to make
careful choices if we are to satisfy our many wants and needs. We also know that
competitive markets are one of the best ways to make this happen. At the same time,
markets can fail. When they do, the government can step in and fix the problem.
Maintain Competition
The government exercises its power to maintain competition within markets. There are
two ways that government can maintain competitive markets. One is by prohibiting market
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structures that are not competitive. The other is by regulating markets where full
competition is not possible.
Government Regulation
Not all monopolies are bad, and for that reason not all should be broken up. In the case
of a natural monopoly, it makes sense to let the firm expand to take advantage of lower
production costs, and then regulate its activities so that it cannot take advantage of the
consumer.
National and local governments units regulate many monopolies, such as cable television
companies, and water and electric utilities. For example, if a public utility wants to raise
rates, it must argue its case before a public utility commission or other government
agency.
Promote Transparency
Efficient and competitive markets need
adequate information. Transparency is a term
used to indicate that information and actions
are not hidden and instead are easily available
for review.
Public disclosure, the requirement that businesses reveal certain information to the
public, is an important way to do this. For example, all corporations that sell stock to the
public must disclose financial and operating information on a regular basis to both their
shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This data is stored in
a free database that can be accessed by anyone on the Internet.
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Disclosure requirements also exist for consumer lending. If you obtain a credit card or
borrow money to buy a car, the lender will explain in writing the method for computing the
monthly interest, the length of the loan, the size of the payments, and other lending terms.
This is not an act of kindness on the lender’s part because federal law requires these
disclosures. Finally, “truth-in-advertising” laws prevent sellers from making false claims
about their products.
Most government documents, studies, and reports are available on the Internet. This
includes the annual budget of the National Government, the Statistical Abstract of the
Philippines, Census Bureau reports, and nearly every other publication that you can find
in the government documents section of your local public library.
Public goods are important because they make the economy more productive. For
example, businesses need reliable transportation so that they can move their raw
materials and final products. In addition, their employees need to be able to easily
commute to and from work. Firms also need an educated workforce that is both productive
and able to purchase the products that are produced.
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In the late 1800s, the freedom to pursue self-interests led some people to seek economic
gain at the expense of others. Under the label of competition, many larger firms used their
power to take advantage of smaller ones. In some markets, less competitive market
structures such as monopoly replaced competition, and the economy became less
efficient.
More recently, concern has shifted to economic efficiency and the role of the government
in promoting it. Markets have become increasingly important, and we recognize that
markets can fail in several different ways. When this happens, the government can take
steps to remedy the situation.
Over the years, government’s role in the economy has slowly evolved from concern over
consumer protection to the promotion of economic competition and efficiency. As a result
of this government intervention, we now have a modified private enterprise economy, or
an economy based on markets with varying degrees of government regulation.
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TASK AND ACTIVITIES
ESSAY TEST
Directions: Read the question and explain carefully based on how or what you
understand about the lessons.
5. What type of market failure do you think is most harmful to the economy?
9. Why do we use the term modified to describe the Philippine free enterprise
economy?
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REFERENCES:
Clayton, G.E., Economics Principles and Practices, McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2008.
Sloman, J., [Link]., Economics Tenth Edition, Pearson Education Limited, 2018.
Balisacan, A. and Hill, H., Philippine Economy: Development, Policies, and Challenges,
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Basu, D., Economic Models: Methods, Theory and Applications, World Scientific
Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., 2009.
Canlas, D., [Link]., Diagnosing the Philippine Economy Toward Inclusive Growth, Asian
Development Bank, 2011.
Hofman, B., [Link]., Economic and Political Challenges in the Philippines. Retrieved from
[Link]
philippines-event-3645
Piros, C.D. and Pinto, J.E., Economics for Investment Decision Makers: Micro, Macro,
and International Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., (2013).
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