In: Economics
Suppose there are N firms who produce an identical product and face the demand curve P = 170 – 3Q, where P is the price of the good (in dollars) and Q is the total quantity supplied by the firms. The marginal cost of production per firm is $20; there are no fixed costs.
If there is only one firm in the market (a monopolist), what is this firm's optimal output?
If there are four firms in the market (N=4), what is the symmetric Nash equilibrium output per firm?
What is the price in this market as N tends towards infinity?
If the product is identical, with demand curve P = 170 - 3Q
the total revenue will be
Thus marginal revenue will be
and MC is given as 20
Profit maximizing condition is MR = MC
Thus, 170 - 6Q = 20
150 = 6Q
Q = 25 units
Thus, if there is only one firm, the optimal output is 25 units.
If there are 4 firms, the symmetric Nash equilibrium output per firm will be as under:
25/4 = 6.25 units
If output is symmetric, each firm will produce about 6 units. This is assuming the firms are equal in size, and are profit maximizers.
Now, as N tends towards infinity, the market becomes more and more competitive. The number of firms becomes very large. With this, the price in this market will tend towards the marginal cost of production, which is $20.
When P = MC, the market represents perfect competition, and profits are driven down to zero.