What Is Perfect Competition in the Market?
The market of perfect competition is an ideal model and therefore is extremely rare. With large assumptions, the stock market and the market for agricultural products can be attributed to the market of perfect competition.
But, despite the apparent ideality, the market of perfect competition has both advantages and disadvantages.
The advantages of the perfect competition are:
The biggest advantage is the achievement of market equilibrium, when there is no shortage and surplus of goods.
In addition, striving to maximize profits, firms approach the issue of using economic resources very carefully and scrupulously: they compare their marginal costs and marginal revenue, and find the most efficient volume of production and the optimal use of resources.
The flexibility of a perfectly competitive market. When consumer preferences change, the firm immediately adapts to new conditions or leaves this market and moves to the segment where its efforts are more needed by society.
The market of perfect competition is capable of self-regulation and can function without government intervention.
But in addition to all the above advantages, the market of perfect competition has several disadvantages:
Small firms. Such firms usually seek to minimize costs and save on innovative developments and research.
Small firms cannot take advantage of the economies of scale that larger firms have.The company has the opportunity to leave this market at any time, so there is no need to think about tomorrow.
There are no entry and exit barriers. It leads to the fact that it is not always possible to use the necessary measures of public regulation in the form of environmental protection or product quality assurance.
Since the goods presented in the market of perfect competition are standardized and homogeneous, the consumer cannot satisfy all the variety of his needs.