Michael Weiss is a columnist for Foreign Policy, The Daily Beast, and NOW Lebanon. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia where he is the editor-in-chief of The Interpreter, an online news and translation journal covering Russian foreign policy and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Perfectly competitive firms are small in size in relation to the market size â and none of these firms control the market. A monopolist firm, on the other hand, is larger and controls the entire market for its industry. Monopolistic firms are price makers by virtue of their market control.
Monopolies are on the other end of the continuum from pure competition. A monopoly consists of one firm that produces a unique product or service with no close substitutes. Entry into the market is blocked, which gives the firm market power (i.e., the power to raise price above marginal cost).