In: Finance
An imperfect market refers to any economic market that does not meet the rigorous standards of a hypothetical perfectly (or "purely") competitive market, as established by Marshellian partial equilibrium models. An imperfect market arises whenever individual buyers and sellers can influence prices and production, or otherwise when perfect information is not known.
Market Economy
Perfect Hedge
BREAKING DOWN 'Imperfect Market'
All real-world markets are theoretically imperfect, and the study of real markets is always complicated by various imperfections. For example, traders in a financial market do not possess perfect or even identical knowledge about financial products. The traders and assets in a financial market are not perfectly homogeneous. New information is not instantaneously transmitted to all actors, and there does not exist an infinite velocity of reactions thereafter. Economists only use perfect competition models to think through the implications of economic activity.