Imperfect Information
No sellers or buyers have complete market information, like market demand or market supply.
| Number of firms | Market power | Elasticity of demand | Product differentiation | Excess profits | Efficiency | Profit maximization condition | Pricing power | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perfect Competition | Infinite | None | Perfectly elastic | None | No | Yes | P=MR=MC | Price taker |
| Monopolistic competition | Many | Low | Highly elastic (long run) | High | Yes/No (Short/Long) | No | MR=MC | Price setter |
| Monopoly | One | High | Relatively inelastic | Absolute (across industries) | Yes | No | MR=MC | Price setter |
Read more about this topic: Monopolistic Competition
Famous quotes containing the words imperfect and/or information:
“... the aspiring immigrant ... is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises.”
—Mary Antin (1881–1949)
“So while it is true that children are exposed to more information and a greater variety of experiences than were children of the past, it does not follow that they automatically become more sophisticated. We always know much more than we understand, and with the torrent of information to which young people are exposed, the gap between knowing and understanding, between experience and learning, has become even greater than it was in the past.”
—David Elkind (20th century)