A monopolistic competitor's demand curve is less elastic than apure competitor's which is less elastic than a pure monopolist's.
YES
marginal revenue is negative where demand is inelastic
No. It depends on the monopolistic firm. If the firm is a monopolist because it has lowered its prices on products so low to drain out the competition and force the other firms to exit the market, it may not be profiting at all and it may be losing money instead. However, in the long run a monopolistic firm can be profitable because when all firms exit the market it has the ability to raise prices to pay for any loss it may have experienced by lowering prices in the earlier part of its monopolistic strategy. A firm that is a monopolist in a market may never see profitability. It all depends on the monopolist's ability to defend its product that it takes to market. Also, a firm isn't ever guaranteed positive economic profit. The demand might cease at any time and the firm might find itself in a never ending loss scenerio.
Elasticity of demand is critical in determining the price which maximizes profits.The monopoly pricing rule says to set (P-MC)/P=1/e, where e is the ABSOLUTE VALUE of the price elasticity of demand. (Remember, price elasticities are negative.)Note that MC is the marginal cost at the quantity produced. If it's not constant, some calculation is required to figure out how much Q to make.
shift to the left.
YES
marginal revenue is negative where demand is inelastic
I actually think that a this would fall under either Duopoly or Oligolopy because there is more than one competitor in this market. For example, Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
No. It depends on the monopolistic firm. If the firm is a monopolist because it has lowered its prices on products so low to drain out the competition and force the other firms to exit the market, it may not be profiting at all and it may be losing money instead. However, in the long run a monopolistic firm can be profitable because when all firms exit the market it has the ability to raise prices to pay for any loss it may have experienced by lowering prices in the earlier part of its monopolistic strategy. A firm that is a monopolist in a market may never see profitability. It all depends on the monopolist's ability to defend its product that it takes to market. Also, a firm isn't ever guaranteed positive economic profit. The demand might cease at any time and the firm might find itself in a never ending loss scenerio.
Elasticity of demand is critical in determining the price which maximizes profits.The monopoly pricing rule says to set (P-MC)/P=1/e, where e is the ABSOLUTE VALUE of the price elasticity of demand. (Remember, price elasticities are negative.)Note that MC is the marginal cost at the quantity produced. If it's not constant, some calculation is required to figure out how much Q to make.
No, in a monopolistic market, marginal revenue is less than average revenue and price. This is because the monopolist must lower the price in order to sell more units, leading to a decline in revenue per unit.
The Monopolist - 1915 was released on: USA: 21 August 1915
shift to the left.
If a monopolist raises his prices above marginal cost, he will increase his profits. This seems like a good thing for the monopolist. However, the down side is that it reduces the well-being of consumers. Most times, the harm to consumers is greater than the gain of the monopolist.
The demand curve faced by a pure monopolist is of downward sloping in shape.
i) "If the demand curve is vertical, elasticity is zero"Price Elasticity of Demand captures the shift in demand for rises in prices in percentage terms. Therefore if a commodity is such that no matter what price the producer charges the consumer has no alternative but to buy it, then for any price the demand for that commodity remains unaltered, maybe an example is a monopolist salt producer. Therefore the demand curve must be vertical, no matter what the price the quantity demanded is same, hence the price elasticity is zero.
A monopolist must lower its quantity relative to a competitive market to maximize its profits because the monopolist already controls and owns the largest share of the market.