Market conduct and performance in oligopolistic industries generally combine monopolistic and competitive tendencies, with the relative strength of the two tendencies depending roughly on the detailed market structure of the oligopoly.
In the simplest form of oligopolistic industry, sellers are few, and every seller supplies a sufficiently large share of the market so that any feasible and modest change in his policies will appreciably affect the market shares of all his rival sellers, inducing them to react or respond. For example, if seller A reduces his selling price sufficiently below the general level of prices being charged by all sellers to permit him to capture significant numbers of customers from his rivals if they hold their selling prices unchanged, they may react by reducing their prices by a similar amount, so that none gains at the expense of others and the group’s combined profits are probably reduced. Or, seller A’s rivals may retaliate by reducing their selling prices more than he did, thus forcing a further reaction from him. Conversely, if seller A increases his selling price above the general level being charged by all sellers (thus tending to lose at least some of his customers to his rivals), they may react by holding their prices unchanged, in which event seller A will probably retract his increase and bring his price back to the previous level. But his rivals may also react by raising their prices as much as seller A raised his, in which case the general level of prices in the industry rises and the combined profits of all sellers are probably increased.
Any seller A in an oligopoly will therefore determine whether or not to alter his price or other market policy in the light of his conjectures about the reactions of his rivals. Correspondingly, his rivals will determine their reactions in the light of their conjectures about what seller A will do in response. The process is not likely to bring the industry price level down to minimal average cost as in atomistic competition. Many different “equilibrium” levels between the competitive and monopolistic limits are possible, depending on further circumstances.
Thus, in an oligopoly viable collusive agreements among rival sellers are quite possible. They may be express agreements established by contract or tacit understandings that develop as a pattern of reactions among sellers to changes in each others’ prices or market policies becomes customary. In the United States, express collusive agreements are forbidden by law, but tacit agreements, or “gentlemen’s understandings,” are common in oligopolistic industries. Such implicit agreements, however, can be upset by many factors, including declines in demand or improvements in technology that allow firms to cut costs while still earning profits.
In numerous other Western countries, formal collusive agreements (often called cartels if comprehensive in scope) are legal. Whether tacit or explicit, legal or illegal, one may say that oligopolistic prices tend to be “administered” by sellers, in the senses mentioned above, as distinct from being determined by impersonal market forces.
The varying market performance of oligopolies results from the fact that individual sellers intrinsically have two conflicting aims. One common desire is to establish among themselves a monopolistic level of price (and of selling costs, etc.), which will maximize their combined profits, giving them the largest “profit pie” to divide. But each seller also has a fundamental antagonism toward rival sellers and wants to maximize his or her own profits even at the expense of others. The relative strengths of these conflicting aims is likely to depend on how concentrated the oligopoly is, because when sellers are fewer and their individual market shares larger, their rivals’ reactions are stronger deterrents to independent actions.
This is why various sorts of market performance are to be expected in oligopolistic industries. When the entry of other sellers is blockaded, collusive or interdependent behaviour may lead to a full monopoly price. If entry is only impeded, the resulting price may be far enough below the full monopoly level to discourage further entry. But prices are not always what they seem. An announced price that is well above cost may be undercut by clandestine price reductions to individual buyers, bringing the average of actual selling prices down somewhat. If an oligopolistic industry is made up of a “core” of a few large interdependent sellers plus a “competitive fringe” of several or numerous quite small sellers, the competition of the small sellers may induce the large ones to limit the extent to which they raise their prices.
Price behaviour approaching full monopoly pricing seems to be found mainly in oligopolies having very high seller concentration and blockaded entry. Where these characteristics are less pronounced, prices and profits tend to be lower, though they are likely to be somewhat above the competitive level. A few economists maintain that oligopolistic prices in general do not significantly differ from atomistically competitive prices, but the bulk of statistical evidence does not support them.
In oligopolies in which product differentiation is important, sales-promotion costs and the costs of product improvement or development will display roughly the same variety of tendencies found in pricing. Where there are a few large interdependent sellers, these costs may be restricted to about the same level as those of a single-firm monopolist; on the other hand, rivalry in sales promotion and product development may be sufficient to raise them. Oligopolists may also arrive collusively at relatively high uniform selling prices but simultaneously engage in independent nonprice competition (perhaps more so where seller concentration is lower).
