Domestic Helps – The Oligopolists
Oligopoly which is an example of an imperfect market, gives market power to a few sellers, to indulge in anti-competitive behavior. They can form a cartel, they can collude and come to an understanding to fix price or restrict output. The domestic help episode provided an instance for Rajesh, to help his wife Revathi comprehend as to why the domestic helps, behaved in a particular way. Rajesh could explain as to why the market for domestic helps showed some features of Oligopoly market. The entire episode gave him a chance to develop it as a caselet to explain to his students, much more complex concepts of Oligopoly such as national and international cartels, collusion, national and international legislations to protect the buyers from the anti-competitive conduct of sellers in the Oligopoly market.
Expected Learning Outcomes
At the end of the discussion, participants should be well acquainted with:
- • Features of oligopoly such as cartel and collusion
- • Why few cartels collapse and others succeed
- • National and international cartels
Prerequisite Conceptual Understanding (PCU)/Before the Classroom Discussion
The participants could be asked to read the following chapter to help them connect the concepts discussed in the caselet.
- • Paul A. Samuelson, et al., “Patterns of Imperfection - Oligopoly”, Economics, 19th Edition (Special Indian Edition), McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited, 2014 – To understand the concepts/features of Cartels and Price Collusion
Case Positioning and Setting
- • This caselet can be used to discuss the concept of Imperfect Competition/Features of Oligopoly in Micro-Economics for MBA
Assignment Questions
- I. How does Oligopoly differ from perfect competition?
- II. Explain the features of Oligopoly such as, Cartel and Collusion.
- III. What are the types of Collusion?
- IV. ...............
Case Analysis and Discussion
The discussion dashboard provided as Exhibit (TN)-I illustrates the broad sections of discussion in the classroom.....