State any two ways by which monopolistic competition and perfect competition are similar and any three ways in which they are different.

Assessment: WAEC SSCE - Economics - 1996 (Essay) Subject: Economics

Question 1 Report

State any two ways by which monopolistic competition and perfect competition are similar and any three ways in which they are different.

Answer Details

Two ways they are similar

  • Both have a large number of buyers and sellers, so no single buyer dominates the market.
  • Both allow freedom of entry into and exit from the industry, so in the long run firms earn only normal profit.

Three ways they differ

Perfect competitionMonopolistic competition
Products are homogeneous (identical).Products are differentiated (close but not identical substitutes).
The firm is a price taker with a perfectly elastic (horizontal) demand curve.The firm has some control over price and faces a downward-sloping demand curve.
There is no advertising or selling cost because goods are identical.Firms advertise and incur selling costs to distinguish their brands.

A further difference is that buyers and sellers have perfect knowledge of the market under perfect competition, but only imperfect knowledge under monopolistic competition.

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