Oligopoly competition on market with food products

Abstract

Oligopoly can be defined as a market model of the imperfect competition type, assuming the existence of only a few companies in a sector or industry, from which at least some have a significant market share and can therefore influence the production prices in the market. Many models of oligopoly that differ from one another mostly in the nature of the competitive companies’ behaviour can be found through the study of oligopolistic structures. Some models describe only the behaviour of two companies in the monitored market (duopoly), others describe several companies of the same power (cartel), still others assume that one of the companies has a dominant position in the market, etc. The text of this article deals with oligopolistic competition in the food market in the terms of the behaviour of grocers and with the impact of this competition upon the market competition in the sector. First, it mentions the agreements on common cooperation and procedure, when cartel market structure originates. It also analyzes the examples of behaviour of oligopoly with a dominant firm on the market with products in the food sector, with the goal of detecting whether the market with these products is significantly influenced by the oligopolistic behaviour of companies.