Perfect Competition Short Run Equilibrium

Assumptions behind a perfectly competitive market (conditions):

·       Large number of buyers and sellers with insignificant market share.

·       Freedom of entry and exit into the market. There are no barriers to entry and exit in the long run, the market is open to new suppliers.

·       Consumers have perfect knowledge about prices.

·       All firms have equal access to resources (e.g. technology) – perfect factor mobility.

·       Homogenous products that are perfect substitutes for one another.

·       Independent action by firms will not influence the market price as each individual firm is too small. This means that the firm is a price taker.

·       No externalities of production or consumption.

Perfectly competitive markets are rare, however close examples include:

·       Foreign currency – homogenous product, each trader is relatively small in the market and the trader has to take the given price.

·       Fruits and vegetables – homogenous product, firms are price takers, large number of buyers and sellers…etc.

When the firm is a price taker, there is little percentage difference in prices within the market. But most firms sell at the prevailing, ruling market price.

Short run equilibrium

The market ruling price is P1, at equilibrium. The diagram on the left illustrates the whole market, while on the right is the diagram showing the individual firm in the market. As the firm is a price taker, AR=MR=P which also equals market demand because there is lack of brand loyalty, making the demand curve perfectly elastic, and because the firm cannot influence the price.

From the diagram on the right of the individual firm, the firm is producing at profit maximisation, Q1. The shaded area shows the abnormal/supernormal profits being made since the area OP1XQ1 shows total revenue and OP2YQ1 shows total costs. Profits = revenue – costs, therefore profits are equal to OP1XQ1 - OP2YQ1, supernormal profits. The firm is only able to make abnormal profits in the short run in a perfectly competitive market because new firms are attracted by the prospects of making abnormal profits in the long run and enter the market, this erodes the abnormal profits.

However, not all firms make abnormal profits in a perfectly competitive market in the short run. This depends on the position of the AC curve.

For the firm above, there are subnormal profits being made because average costs are greater than average revenues. Selling at the market ruling price of P1 will therefore only enable the firm to make subnormal profits.

Case Study for the Office of Fair Trading

The OFT has fined 9 companies a total of £50m for price fixing of dairy products in 2002 to 2003. Arla, Asda, Dairy Crest, McLelland, Safeway (now Morrisons), Sainsbury's, Tesco, The Cheese Company and Wiseman are the dairy producers/supermarkets involved who fixed the price of milk, cheese, butter and other dairy products.

This is a good case study to mention in the exam to discuss why firms would want to engage in collusive agreements (see cartel although this isn't necessarily a cartel, it displays characteristics) and the effectiveness of regulatory bodies in protecting consumers against anti-competitive practices.

UK Economic Growth

Yesterday it was announced that the US Federal Reserve (Central Bank) will keep US interest rates at 0.25% until at least mid 2013. It has been 0.25% since December 2008 and the main reasoning behind this is to try and prevent the US economy from undergoing a double dip recession. Because of this, the Bank of England are likely to keep interest rates in the UK 0.5% until the end of the year. See article for more and watch the video for what Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England) had to say.

There are fears that many major economies may face double dip recessions and this risk is heightened by the turmoil in the EU which poses great risk to the UK economy in terms of the banking system and how it will affect UK banks. Furthermore, the rate of inflation is likely to increase to 5% or higher at some point this year before dropping down, affecting disposable incomes and thus decreasing consumption.

Word of the Day

Recession

A fall in national output (GDP) for 2 successive quarters or more. Recessions in the UK: 1980, 1990 and 2008 lasting two years or less.

Word of the Day

Stagflation

A situation in which output is falling and inflation is rising. Unemployment is high. Some economists say that the period we were facing earlier this year was a period of stagflation because economic growth was barely above 0% and the rate of inflation was double the government's target.

Word of the Day

Relative poverty

Someone is in relative poverty when their incomes are rising at a lower rate than everyone else's. A more formal definition is, if someone is in relative poverty, their income is below a specified proportion of average household incomes (below the average incomes of the population).

Many students will "never pay back loans"

An article published this morning warns that many students will not be able to pay back their student loan regardless of whether you are being charged £6000 or £9000 for your university course. If you think you will be worse off having fees of £9000 rather than £6000 per year, then you may be wrong. This is because after 30 years your debt is written off and you still would not have finished repaying your full debt by this time.

Martin Lewis, from MoneySavingExpert, calculated that if a graduate starts earning £30,000, then the debt of fees of £6000 per year will remain unpaid. If a graduate starts earning £40,000 after graduation, the graduate will pay back their fees of £6000 per year in 24 years. This means that students that start earning £30,000 will never pay back their debt, no matter what their fees. And the likelihood of graduates paying back fees of £9000 is very low.

Whether you have to pay your £6000 fees or £9000 fees, the monthly repayments remain the same. You will have to pay 9% of everything over £21,000 and this increases as you begin to earn more. In some ways, I suppose it is a good thing that you are not debt burdened for the rest of your life (with your student loan fees that is!) and there is a chance that you never have to pay back all the money you owe. But unfortunately, you still have to pay more than the preceding years.

This article can provide thought for the law of unintended consequences. Ask yourself though, how can the government not have calculated how many debts will remain unpaid?