Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Monopoly
(1,413 words)

1. General

Aristotle used monopoly (from Greek mónos, “sole”; poleín, “sell”) to denote a market situation in which there is only a single seller [8]. Technically monopoly means that a single supplier can influence the market price to generate a “monopoly profit” because he will try to fix the offer price above his unit costs. In a perfect market, however, the market price would adjust to the level of the marginal cost, and no supplier or demander would have an opportunity to influence the price.  

In princi…

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Hesse, Jan-Otmar, “Monopoly”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 25 September 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_024235>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20200128



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