Summary
Perfect Competition. Perfect competition is a market structure in which buyers and sellers are price takers. Each firm faces a horizontal demand curve. A firm’s demand curve is horizontal because perfectly competitive markets have five characteristics: the market has many small buyers and sellers, firms produce identical (homogeneous) products, buyers have full information about product prices and characteristics, transaction costs are negligible, and the market has free entry and exit in the long run. Many markets are highly competitive—firms are very close to being price takers—even if they do not strictly possess all five of the characteristics associated with perfect competition.
Competition in the Short Run. To maximize its profit, ...
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