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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries

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To: Maurice Winn who wrote (69351)5/21/2008 2:39:42 AM
From: Elroy Jetson  Read Replies (1) of 74559
 
Here's some economics for you to think about. The explanation in Wikipedia is pretty decent.

en.wikipedia.org

The original concept of natural monopoly is often attributed to John Stuart Mill, who argued that it was wasteful to have multiple providers of utility services, although he did not refer to the situation as a "natural monopoly."

In economics, the term natural monopoly is used to refer to two different things. This has been a source of some ambiguity in discussions of "natural monopoly".[1] The two definitions follow:

1.) An industry is said to be a natural monopoly if one firm can produce a desired output at a lower social cost than two or more firms — that is, there are economies of scale in social costs.[2][1] Unlike in the ordinary understanding of a monopoly, a natural monopoly situation does not mean that only one firm is providing a particular kind of good or service. Rather it is the assertion about an industry, that multiple firms providing a good or service is less efficient (more costly to a nation or economy) than would be the case if a single firm provided a good or service. There may, or may not be, a single supplier in such an industry. This is a normative claim which is used to justify the creation of statutory monopolies, where government prohibits competition by law. Examples of claimed natural monopolies include railways, telecommunications, water services, electricity, mail delivery and computer software. Some claim that the theory is a flawed rationale for state prohibition of competition.[3][4]

2.) An industry is said to be a natural monopoly (also called technical monopoly) if only one firm is able to survive in the long run, even in the absence of legal regulations or "predatory" measures by the monopolist.[1] It is said that this is the result of high fixed costs of entering an industry which causes long run average costs to decline as output expands (i.e. economies of scale in private costs).
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