Microeconomics › Section J · Monopolistic competition and oligopoly › Topic J.2
Oligopoly, collusion, and cartels
Between monopoly and the crowded middle sits the market of the few: a handful of giants, each powerful enough to matter, none powerful enough to ignore the others. Their mutual watching is the structure's defining fact - and it creates a tension between competing and cooperating that shapes prices everywhere from aircraft to oil.
In this topic
- A few giants, watching each other
- Why oligopolies exist
- Measuring concentration
- Worked example: reading a market's numbers
- The temptation to collude
- The economics of cheating
- Real cartels: OPEC and the others
- Tacit collusion and sticky prices
- Worked example: a cartel's fragile arithmetic
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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