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:
“There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“But while ignorance can make you insensitive, familiarity can also numb. Entering the second half-century of an information age, our cumulative knowledge has changed the level of what appalls, what stuns, what shocks.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)