Perfect Competition
|
Monopolistic Competition
|
Oligopoly
|
Monopoly
|
|
Number of firms
|
Lots
|
Several
|
Very few
|
One
|
Freedom of entry
|
Unrestricted
|
Unrestricted
|
Restricted
|
Completely restricted
|
Nature of product
|
Undifferentiated
|
Differentiated
|
Both differentiated and undifferentiated
|
Unique
|
Implications for demand curve
|
Horizontal slope
|
Downward sloping but still elastic
|
Downward sloping and inelastic
|
Downward sloping, most inelastic
|
Average size of firms
|
Smaller firms
|
Small-Medium
|
Larger firms
|
Very large; only 1 firm
|
Possible consumer demand
|
Products with high demand
|
High demand
|
Low consumer demand for Oligopoly
|
Very low consumer demand for Monopoly’s
|
Profit making possibility
|
Slightly smaller due to #of firms
|
More possible, fewer firms
|
With very few firms, possibility of profit is high
|
Very high
|
Government Intervention
|
Low
|
Low
|
Medium-High
|
High
|
Possible performance of firms
|
Many firms can succeed since demand is high
|
Still allows for more firms to succeed
|
Possibility of largest firm to perform well is high
|
As long as government intervention doesn’t take possibility
away, the firm can perform extremely well.
|
I have added the row "possibility of performance of firms" as I think it is important to compare which market allows for the most firms to be successful.