Monopolies are considered the most extreme form of imperfect competition

An overview of monopolies, when one company controls an entire market

In the business world, a monopoly exists when one company controls the entire market. Regulators take issue with monopolies because they have been found to limit consumer choices, raise prices, and hurt competition.

Market concentration and high markups don't always signal a monopoly

When regulators and economists evaluate whether a company constitutes an illegal monopoly, they often consider its overall market share or its relatively high price markups. This piece argues that the Olley-Pakes decomposition is a better measure, identifying whether customers within a market are switching to more productive companies.

Utility companies are often considered 'natural' monopolies

Natural monopolies occur in industries where the upfront costs of entering the market are high, making competition unrealistic. Investor-owned power companies, like Duke Energy, often have natural monopolies, as building alternative power grids and transmission lines is too expensive and impractical for competitors.

An oligopoly is a market structure where a few large businesses dominate the entire market

When a few large companies dominate a market, changes in pricing for goods and services affect the entire market. Airlines are a common example of an oligopoly. Because the barrier to entry in the aviation industry is high, only a few airline companies offer the majority of the industry's services. While there is some competition, pricing across the board is largely intertwined and based on other companies' prices.

A 'bilateral monopoly' occurs when there's one supplier and one buyer in a market

Bilateral monopolies are often used to conceptualize labor markets in small towns. Using this concept, large employers have a monopoly over the labor market, while workers have a monopsony as the only available laborers.

Read the Federal Trade Commission's legal definition of a monopoly

The Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division are the regulatory agencies responsible for overseeing antitrust laws. Before deeming any company a monopoly or acknowledging monopolistic power in a market, the FTC conducts thorough research into market competition, price, and even other competitors' business practices.

Explore a list of well-known monopolies

Many American monopolies popped up during the rapid industrial growth of the Gilded Age. Industries like steel, tobacco, railroads, and telecommunication have all been monopolized at some point in history.

Network effects are the economic term for a good or service's popularity

When goods or services become especially popular, firms that provide that good or service become dominant in the market—which can ultimately lead to a monopoly.

Patents arguably grant inventors monopolies for a short period of time

As a way to reward innovation, the government grants short-term monopolies on patented products. Patents block other companies from producing or selling that product, giving inventors the rights and opportunity to establish themselves in a market before other competitors enter.

Legendary venture capitalist Peter Thiel once wrote that 'competition is for losers'

With Peter Thiel's "Monopoly Theory," the Founders Fund partner argued that investing in companies that create new categories, rather than those that compete with other businesses in existing ones, is a best practice in venture capital.

Robber barons, the monopolistic business people of the 19th century, explained

“Robber baron” was a term used to describe 19th-century businesspeople who engaged in monopolistic business practices and didn’t face much business regulation, resulting in significant wealth.

Standard Oil's predatory business practices included temporarily operating at a loss to drive competitors out of business

Rockefeller's oil monopoly had a dark side, including cutting oil prices so low that Standard Oil was sometimes temporarily operating at a loss in order to drive competitors out of business.

Understanding the differences between capitalism and socialism

The two economic systems are rarely found in their pure form. Capitalism emphasizes private property, capital accumulation, and limited government regulation, while socialism favors government control of production to meet the needs of everyone rather than to generate profit. Most economies are a mix of both.

16 credit unions with almost no membership requirements

One of the hallmarks of credit unions is that they tend to be exclusive. For instance, one of the largest credit unions only does business with Boeing employees. However, this roundup introduces 16 credit unions that have practically no membership requirements. Interested customers may need to guarantee $5 minimum deposits and in some cases, make a donation to an affiliated charitable organization.

'Dilution' is any use of a trademark that weakens its distinctiveness

Unlike trademark infringement that hinges on the likelihood of confusing customers, trademark dilution is an illegal practice that threatens the distinctiveness of a trademark. In the US, famous brands like Nike and Google have a right to protection from dilution.

Explaining computer kernels and what makes monolithic kernels different from microkernels

A kernel is an intermediary piece of software on a device that manages the connection between software programs—the services and processes they perform to run correctly—and the available hardware resources, such as memory and computing bandwidth, including prioritizing resource allocation and managing access to specific hardware. A monolithic kernel manages all of an operating system's services, whereas a microkernel only handles essential services.

What is the rarest color in nature?

Plants, animals, or minerals found in nature bear almost every color imaginable. There are two factors that influence what hues you see in the wild: physics and evolution. So, which colors are you least likely to see in the natural world? Victoria Hwang explores one of nature’s rarest spectacles.

The world's most (and least) corrupt countries

The annual index measuring every country's relative levels of corruption. In 2022, Denmark earned the top spot for transparency, with Sudan, Syria, and Somalia identified as having the highest levels of corruption in the public sector. The rankings...

Learn how governments around the world restrict internet access for their citizens

Various countries around the world, including China, Russia, and Iran, control their local DNS infrastructure, allowing them to block access to online content by preventing the internet "phone book" from finding the IP addresses for specific URLs. Government-controlled internet service providers can also cut off access entirely or throttle specific traffic.

View the industrial applications of extremozymes, from food safety to antibiotic production

Extremophiles possess unique enzymes and organic molecules that have enabled them to adapt to and thrive in otherwise lethal environments. Because these conditions resemble those found in various areas of manufacturing and production plants, these organisms and their macromolecules can optimize industrial processes where conventional catalysts would lose their ability to speed up reactions.

The 'playing card' and 'blueberry' taxes are among the strangest around the world

In Canada, companies making children’s breakfast cereals are granted a tax exemption if their cereal boxes contain free toys. While the exemption is limited to toys that are not “beer, liquor, or wine,” the cereal tax is far from the world's most eccentric tax.

Commodities have to meet specific specifications to be classified as commodities

In the financial sense of the term, commodities must be uniform, interchangeable, and deliverable to meet the classification. That's partly why a crop grown in your backyard might not qualify as a commodity crop.

There were fewer competitive districts in 2022 than at any point since 1970

Analysts reported that the 2022 midterms featured the lowest share of competitive congressional districts since 1970, reflecting how modern redistricting has increasingly produced safe seats and reduced voter choice.

Dystopian literature is focused on oppressive societies

The subgenre can come in many forms, but its shared traits are the way it reflects the anxieties and satirizes the utopian thinking of its writers’ societies. One of the earliest examples is Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels."

The world's top streaming services (by subscriber count)

With almost 270 million paying users, Netflix is the dominant force in streaming entertainment. But after enjoying a first-mover advantage for years, competitors are beginning to catch up. Most notable is Amazon, which leverages its Prime subscriptions to bundle Prime Video, and has amassed an estimated 200 million users. See an updated tracker of the world's biggest platforms by audience.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Learn how monoclonal antibodies, which mimic the body's antibodies, can fight diseases like Ebola.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.

Apeirophobia is an overwhelming fear of living forever, perhaps stemming from the brain's inability to conceptualize an infinite life.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Poison ivy is in the same family as mangoes, cashews, and pistachios—and they all produce oily urushiol in their raw, unprocessed state—but they are typically prepared in ways to avoid causing human discomfort.