Monopolies can be national (royal mail), regional (water companies) or local (petrol station). Unlike a perfect competition situation were firms are 'price takers' and only respond to consumer demand, a monopoly finds itself in an imperfect competition market. In this type of market the firm is more of a 'price maker' and can therefore influence the market price. When comparing monopoly and perfect competition under the same conditions, we can find that the monopolist when in equilibrium produces a lower output and sells it at a higher price than the perfectly competitive firm. …
