Week Three Student Guide

In the third week, you will learn about the four market structures—pure or perfect competition; monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly—and the implications of the market structures for competitive strategies and profit maximization. You will participate in discussions that compare various market structures and their characteristics, evaluate the effectiveness of competitive strategies in market structures, and determine profit-maximizing strategies based on a market structure analysis. The topics incorporate Week One material related to market outcomes and prices & Week Two concepts, which focused on productivity and costs.

This week includes activities that lead you to identify the market structure firms compete in and the factors that lead to these determinations. They also allow you to evaluate the effect of market structure on profit maximization in the short and long run. You will learn how to use graphs and charts of profit maximization in each structure. You learn how the market structure positively and negatively affects a firm and how the effectiveness of the competitive strategies in the structure affects the organization’s long-term profitability. Critical to this understanding is the fundamental concept that a firm maximizes profits where marginal revenues equal marginal costs. The ability to focus on the marketplace, an organization’s cost structure, and market structure on competitive strategies and profit maximization will emphasize the importance of economics in decision-making.

Market Structure

OBJECTIVE: Compare various market structures and their characteristics.

Resources: Ch. 3, 15, & 16 of Economics

Content

• Ch. 3: Economic Institutions

o The U.S. Economy in Historical Perspective o The U.S. Economy o Global Institutions

• Ch. 15: Monopoly

o The Key