Market form

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In economics, the main criteria by which one can distinguish between different market forms are: the number and size of producers and consumers in the market, the type of goods and services being traded, and the degree to which information can flow freely. The major market forms are:

Perfect competition, in which the market consists of a very large number of firms producing a homogeneous product.
Monopolistic competition, also called competitive market, where there are a large number of independent firms which have a very small proportion of the market share.
Oligopoly, in which a market is dominated by a small number of firms which own more than 40% of the market share.
Oligopsony, a market dominated by many sellers and a few buyers.
Monopoly, where there is only one provider of a product or service.
Natural monopoly, a monopoly in which economies of scale cause efficiency to increase continuously with the size of the firm.
Monopsony, when there is only one buyer in a market.

These somewhat abstract concerns tend to determine some but not all details of a specific concrete market system where buyers and sellers actually meet and commit to trade.

**Quick Reference to Basic Market Structures**
Market Structure	Seller Entry Barriers	Seller Number	Buyer Entry Barriers	Buyer Number
Perfect Competition	No	Many	No	Many
Monopolistic competition	No	Many	No	Many
Oligopoly	Yes	Few	No	Many
Oligopsony	No	Many	Yes	Few
Monopoly	Yes	One	No	Many
Monopsony	No	Many	Yes	One

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External links

Microeconomics by Elmer G. Wiens: Online Interactive Models of Oligopoly, Differentiated Oligopoly, and Monopolistic Competition

Topics in microeconomics	Edit
Scarcity \| Opportunity cost \| Supply and demand \| Elasticity \| Economic surplus \| Economic shortage \| Aggregation of individual demand to total, or market, demand \| Consumer theory \| Production, costs, and pricing \| Market form \| Welfare economics \| Market failure