1. What is a market?

2. What is a competitive market?

3. Where do consumers and producers exchange their goods and services?

4. What do economists mean by the market structure?

5. What characteristics define the structure of a market?

6. What are the principal types of market structures?

7. What is perfect competition?

8. What are the key characteristics of perfect competition?

9. Why can no individual alter the market price?

10. What does an identical commodity offered for sale mean?

11. How is perfect competition affected by such factors as the number of the buyers and sellers, product differentiation, and barriers to entry?

12. What is monopolistic competition?

13. What are the key characteristics of monopolistic competition?

14. What distinguishes monopolistic competition from perfect competition?

15. What is product differentiation?

16. Why does a firm try to differentiate its product?

17. How is monopolistic competition affected by such factors as the number of the buyers and sellers, product differentiation, and barriers to entry?

18. What is oligopoly?

19. Why does oligopoly exist?

20. What are the key characteristics of oligopoly?

21. Why is it difficult to enter the oligopolistic market?

22. What is patent?

23. Why is price competition less effective in the oligopolistic market?

24. What is meant by the term «price leadership»?

25. What is the purpose of collusion?

26. How is oligopoly affected by such factors as the number of the buyers and sellers, product differentiation, and barriers to entry?

27. How does oligopoly differ from monopolistic competition?

28. What is monopoly?

29. How does a monopoly determine its price?

30. How is monopoly affected by such factors as the number of the buyers and sellers, product differentiation, and barriers to entry?

31. What is imperfect competition?

32. What types of market structure does imperfect competition comprise?

33. How does imperfect competition differ from perfect competition and monopoly?

Questions for economic reasoning and discussion

1. Is perfect competition fantasy or is it real? Why?

2. Is product differentiation wasteful? Would society be better off with only one of each product instead of many variations of the same product?

3. A monopolist can always make a profit because with no competition it can charge any price it likes. Do you think this statement is true?

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