Oligopolistic
An oligopoly (from Greek ὀλίγος, ''oligos'' "few" and πωλεῖν, ''polein'' "to sell") is a market structure in which a market or industry is dominated by a small number of large sellers or producers. Oligopolies often result from the desire to maximize profits, which can lead to collusion between companies. This reduces competition, increases prices for consumers, and lowers wages for employees. Many industries have been cited as oligopolistic, including civil aviation, electricity providers, the telecommunications sector, Rail freight markets, food processing, funeral services, sugar refining, beer making, pulp and paper making, and automobile manufacturing. Most countries have laws outlawing anti-competitive behavior. EU competition law prohibits anti-competitive practices such as price-fixing and manipulating market supply and trade among competitors. In the US, the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Concentration Ratio
In economics, concentration ratios are used to quantify market concentration and are based on companies' market shares in a given industry. Market share can be defined as a firm's proportion of total sales in an industry, a firm's market capitalisation as a percentage of total industry market capitalisation or any other metric which conveys the size and dominance of a company relative to its competitors. A concentration ratio (CR) is the sum of the percentage market shares of (a pre-specified number of) the largest firms in an industry. An n-firm concentration ratio is a common measure of market structure and shows the combined market share of the n largest firms in the market. For example, where n = 5, CR5 defines the combined market share of the five largest firms in an industry. Competition economists and competition authorities typically employ concentration ratios (CRn) and the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) as measures of market concentration. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tacit Collusion
Tacit collusion is a collusion between competitors, which do not explicitly exchange information and achieving an agreement about coordination of conduct. There are two types of tacit collusion - concerted action and conscious parallelism. In a concerted action also known as concerted activity, competitors exchange some information without reaching any explicit agreement, while conscious parallelism implies no communication. In both types of tacit collusion, competitors agree to play a certain strategy ''without explicitly saying so''. It is also referred to as oligopolistic price coordination or tacit parallelism. A dataset of gasoline prices of BP, Caltex, Woolworths, Coles, and Gull from Perth gathered in the years 2001 to 2015 was used to show by statistical analysis the tacit collusion between these retailers. BP emerged as a price leader and influenced the behavior of the competitors. As result, the timing of price jumps became coordinated and the margins started to gro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Economy Of Armenia
The Armenian economy contracted sharply in 2020, by 5.7%, mainly due to the 2020 Armenia-Azerbaijan war. In contrast it grew by 7.6 per cent in 2019, the largest recorded growth since 2007, while between 2012 and 2018 GDP grew 40.7%, and key banking indicators like assets and credit exposures almost doubled. While part of the Soviet Union, the economy of Armenia was based largely on industry—chemicals, electronic products, machinery, processed food, synthetic rubber and textiles; it was highly dependent on outside resources. Armenian mines produce copper, zinc, gold and lead. The vast majority of energy is produced with imported fuel from Russia, including gas and nuclear fuel for Armenia's Metsamor nuclear power plant. The main domestic energy source is hydroelectric. Small amounts of coal, gas and petroleum have not yet been developed. Armenia's severe trade imbalance has been offset somewhat by international aid, remittances from Armenians working abroad, and foreign di ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Anti-competitive Practices
Anti-competitive practices are business or government practices that prevent or reduce competition in a market. Antitrust laws differ among state and federal laws to ensure businesses do not engage in competitive practices that harm other, usually smaller, businesses or consumers. These laws are formed to promote healthy competition within a free market by limiting the abuse of monopoly power. Competition allows companies to compete in order for products and services to improve; promote innovation; and provide more choices for consumers. In order to obtain greater profits, some large enterprises take advantage of market power to hinder survival of new entrants. Anti-competitive behavior can undermine the efficiency and fairness of the market, leaving consumers with little choice to obtain a reasonable quality of service. Anti-competitive behaviour is used by business and governments to lessen competition within the markets so that monopolies and dominant firms can generate superno ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Industry (economics)
In macroeconomics, an industry is a branch of an economy that Production (economics) , produces a closely-related set of raw materials, Good (economics) , goods, or Service (economics) , services. For example, one might refer to the wood industry or to the insurance industry. When evaluating a single group or company, its dominant source of revenue is typically used by industry classifications to classify it within a specific industry. For example the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) – used directly or through derived classifications for the official statistics of most countries worldwide – classifies "statistical units" by the "economic activity in which they mainly engage". Industry is then defined as "set of statistical units that are classified into the same ISIC category". However, a single business need not belong just to one industry, such as when a large business (often referred to as a conglomerate (company), conglomerate) Diversification (m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Market (economics)
In economics, a market is a composition of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations or infrastructures whereby parties engage in Exchange (economics), exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services (including labour power) to buyers in exchange for money. It can be said that a market is the process by which the prices of goods and services are established. Markets facilitate trade and enable the distribution and allocation of resources in a society. Markets allow any tradeable item to be evaluated and priced. A market emergence, emerges more or less spontaneous order, spontaneously or may be constructed deliberately by human interaction in order to enable the exchange of rights (cf. ownership) of services and goods. Markets generally supplant gift economies and are often held in place through rules and customs, such as a booth fee, competitive pricing, and source of goods for sale (local p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Price Fixing
Price fixing is an anticompetitive agreement between participants on the same side in a market to buy or sell a product, service, or commodity only at a fixed price, or maintain the market conditions such that the price is maintained at a given level by controlling supply and demand. The intent of price fixing may be to push the price of a product as high as possible, generally leading to profits for all sellers but may also have the goal to fix, peg, discount, or stabilize prices. The defining characteristic of price fixing is any agreement regarding price, whether expressed or implied. Price fixing requires a conspiracy between sellers or buyers. The purpose is to coordinate pricing for mutual benefit of the traders. For example, manufacturers and retailers may conspire to sell at a common "retail" price; set a common minimum sales price, where sellers agree not to discount the sales price below the agreed-to minimum price; buy the product from a supplier at a specified maxi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Risk Aversion
In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more certain outcome. Risk aversion explains the inclination to agree to a situation with a more predictable, but possibly lower payoff, rather than another situation with a highly unpredictable, but possibly higher payoff. For example, a risk-averse investor might choose to put their money into a bank account with a low but guaranteed interest rate, rather than into a stock that may have high expected returns, but also involves a chance of losing value. Example A person is given the choice between two scenarios: one with a guaranteed payoff, and one with a risky payoff with same average value. In the former scenario, the person receives $50. In the uncertain scenario, a coin is flipped to decide whether the person receives $100 or nothing. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Economies Of Scale
In microeconomics, economies of scale are the cost advantages that enterprises obtain due to their scale of operation, and are typically measured by the amount of output produced per unit of time. A decrease in cost per unit of output enables an increase in scale. At the basis of economies of scale, there may be technical, statistical, organizational or related factors to the degree of market control. This is just a partial description of the concept. Economies of scale apply to a variety of the organizational and business situations and at various levels, such as a production, plant or an entire enterprise. When average costs start falling as output increases, then economies of scale occur. Some economies of scale, such as capital cost of manufacturing facilities and friction loss of transportation and industrial equipment, have a physical or engineering basis. The economic concept dates back to Adam Smith and the idea of obtaining larger production returns through the use ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brand Loyalty
In marketing, brand loyalty describes a consumer's positive feelings towards a brand, and their dedication to purchasing the brand's products and/or services repeatedly, regardless of deficiencies, a competitor's actions, or changes in the environment. It can also be demonstrated with other behaviors such as positive word-of-mouth advocacy. Corporate brand loyalty is where an individual buys products from the same manufacturer repeatedly and without wavering, rather than from other suppliers. Loyalty implies dedication and should not be confused with habit with its less-than-emotional engagement and commitment. Businesses whose financial and ethical values (for example, ESG responsibilities) rest in large part on their brand loyalty are said to use the loyalty business model. Marketing Brand loyalty, in marketing, consists of a consumer's commitment to repurchase or continue to use the brand. Consumers can demonstrate brand loyalty by repeatedly buying a product, se ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Investment (macroeconomics)
In macroeconomics, investment "consists of the additions to the nation's capital stock of buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a year" or, alternatively, investment spending — "spending on productive physical capital such as machinery and construction of buildings, and on changes to inventories — as part of total spending" on goods and services per year. Krugman, Paul and Robin Wells (2012), 2nd ed. ''Economics'', p. 593. Worth Publishers. The types of investment include residential investment in housing that will provide a flow of housing services over an extended time, non-residential fixed investment in things such as new machinery or factories, human capital investment in workforce education, and inventory investment (the accumulation, intentional or unintentional, of goods inventories) In measures of national income and output, " gross investment" (represented by the variable ) is a component of gross domestic product (), given in the formula , wh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy. Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization and its relationship to the environment in which it competes. ''Strategy'' has many definitions, but it generally involves setting strategic goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, setting a timeline, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals) will be achieved by the means (resources) in a given span of time. Often, Strategic Planning is long term and organizational action steps are established from two to five ye ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |