Quels sont les arguments pour et contre le monopole naturel ?

Résumé du document

We all know Microsoft, the biggest producer of operating systems in the world, which has almost 95% of the total market under its influence. This firm faces no real competitors ? its market is thus said to be incontestable ? and has therefore an important market power. This situation is called a monopoly. A monopoly is opposed to perfect competition, in which a great number of suppliers compete against one another, by selling at the market price and have therefore no market power. The problem is that the lack of competition due to a monopoly situation, incites the monopolist ? as we are going to show ? to over-price and under-supply. Hence, regulating a monopoly seems a fair response. But what can one do if a monopoly situation is the only possible way to produce a good or service, that is, a situation of natural monopoly? The question arises: should a natural monopoly be regulated or not?

Extraits

[...] In this case, and whatever the value of AC, the monopolist just breaks even. A major criticism[8] of this technique is that the regulator who is supposed to set P=AC knows less about the real costs than the monopolist do, therefore the regulation can be difficult for the regulator. Diagram incentive to inflate costs Moreover, as diagram e. shown[9], the monopolist may have, in this case, an incentive to cheat the regulator: since under price is set at P=AC, the monopolist has no incentive to reduce costs, and can therefore inflate them. [...]

[...] Governments must therefore find another way of regulating a natural monopoly. Since perfect competition is considered to be the most efficient situation, government introduced a regulation called price capping (see diagram which brings the positive aspect of perfect competition into the natural monopoly system. In this case, the government fixes a price, at which the monopolist can sell as much as it wants to (it becomes a kind of price taker, just as in perfect competition). Thanks to this system, the price of the good falls, and the quantity supplied increases. [...]

[...] To conclude, regulating a natural monopoly is a necessity, for it can bring more efficiency. However, it remains that a monopolistic situation is a good way to incite firms to innovate. In spite of that regulating a natural monopoly is quite problematic, because of losses due to taxation, or because of lobbying words. Bibliography Diagrams are my own, but I used Begg's book as a reference. BEGG David, Economics, (Mc Graw Hill Education, 8th edition, 2005) CHAMBERLIN EDWARS H., Monopoly and Competition and their Regulation (London, Macmillan, 1954) CRAVEN John, introduction to Economics, An Integrated Approach to Fundamental Principles (Oxford, Basil Blackwell second edition 1988) FOREMAN-PECK James, Natural Monopoly and Telecommunications, in The Economic Review, (September 1986) PARKIN, Powell, Matthews, Economics (London, Pearson Education sixth edition published in 2005) STEAWARD Geoff, The Economic Review, September 1997 WATERSON Michael, Regulation of the Firm and natural Monopoly (Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1988) I also used the following web sites: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=40481&DisplayTa b=Article (visited the 6th of December; article written the 9th of October 2003 by Paul Thurrott) (http://www.microsoft.com/msft/ar98/alt_uk.htm, visited the 6th of December) http://www.lowendmac.com/future/2k0505pf.html; visited the 4th of December; article written by Kel Taylor the 5th of May 2000) http://news.com.com/Europe+plays+hardball+with+Microsoft/2009-1016_3- 5178068.html (visited the 10th of December) Dr. [...]

[...] We can now understand that a government cannot introduce more competition, otherwise monopolists would cease to produce. On the other hand, a government cannot tolerate a situation of monopoly, because as shown above it tends to over-price and is thus a market failure. Moreover, in Microsoft's monopoly case[6], there can be an abuse of monopoly position. In June 2005, the European Competition Authorities, stated that Microsoft abused its monopoly position[7]. Diagram marginal and average cost pricing Hence, even if it cannot introduce competition, a government has to regulate a natural monopoly. [...]

[...] But one needs to consider the case where monopoly is the only way of producing a good or service. Economists call this situation a natural monopoly. This kind of monopoly arises when one single firm produces more efficiently than two or more firms would produce together, that is to say a monopolist can produce at a lower cost than several firms would do: Cmonopolist [...]