

Note: In buying gas for domestic use, there is competition. On the one hand, this is more competition, but on the other hand, there is duplication. However, some cities do have multiple bus services. Even on a busy route between two towns, it might be inefficient to have two bus companies competing over the same route and offering the same peak and off-peak services. There are high fixed costs, but more importantly issues of practicality. – The most logical number of bus companies within a town is one. Bus services in one particular region.The fixed costs are not particularly high, but the dominant firm benefits from network economies, improved information, lower average prices and In some cities, a product like Uber becomes ubiquitous for that segment of private taxi hire via an app. There are very high fixed costs associated with aeroplane manufacturing, but with the global industry, two main producers can be supported. Aeroplane manufacture – At the moment, this is a duopoly so it is not a natural monopoly, but it is close.National fibre-optic broadband network.Therefore, the optimal number of firms in the industry will be one (one firm producing all 10,000 units).The firms would have average costs of £17. If there were three firms producing 3,000 units.If a firm produces 10,000 units, it will get the lowest possible average costs – £9.

Suppose the industry demand is 10,000 units.“n industry in which multiform production is more costly than production by a monopoly” Diagram of Natural monopoly William Baumol (1977) stated a natural monopoly is There would also be the inconvenience of having two firms dig up the road to lay a duplicate set of water pipes. To have two different companies offering water wouldn’t make sense as the average cost would be very high compared to just one firm and one network. It makes sense to have just one company providing a network of water pipes and sewers because there are very high capital costs involved in setting up a national network of pipes and sewage systems.

Definition: A natural monopoly occurs when the most efficient number of firms in the industry is one.Ī natural monopoly will typically have very high fixed costs meaning that it is impractical to have more than one firm producing the good.Īn example of a natural monopoly is tap water.
