Talk:Monopsony

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- Im changing the intro section to include a reference to "monopsony-power" being used to refer to situations of not only a single buyer, but where individual buyers face an upwardly sloping supply curve. I think this is important because when one talks of "monopoly power" it is taken for granted that one can mean a situation with dominance (but not single buyer), but too many people seem to think "monopsony power" refers only to a single buyer.


I don't think the analysis of why wages would be maximized under perfect competition was correct. IMO, there was unjustified emphasis on this assertion that, for reasons unclear, the supply of labor would be perfectly elastic in a competitive market, though not under a monopsony. But the labor supply curve is independent of what's happening on the demand side. What actually changed was that the prior monopsonist could no longer maintain his low wages because his employees would be poached by a competitor. Competition drives wages to equilibrium. --Rmalloy 04:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Monopsony power – when it exists – can be measured, through the price-elasticity of the faced supply function. As far as I know, no such measures exist to justify the claims made in the article about monopsony in various firms and markets. Unless some is provided, such claims should perhaps be treated as arbitrary:Mario 28 June 2005 14:43 (UTC)

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[edit] "Public" monopsony ?

Someone has added a bit which says: "Monosophonies of course occur in goods only purchased by the government, such as roads and certain weapons (thouigh the former may face competition between levels of government)". Mispelling "Monosophonies" a part, this is true for the "naked" definition, but not for the model. The latter refers in fact to a purchaser who is a profit maximiser. It is only within such model that monopsony leads to a well-defined and measurable allocation problem. Thus the added bit appears to be essentially misleading. I'll wait a few days and then, if nobody produces some counter-argument, I'll remove it. -- Mario 17:47, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I came here looking for exactly this sort of information: what sorts of market problems occur when government is the monopsonist. --Error28 19:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Examples?

I'd like to see some historical examples here, if possible.

What about Wal-mart?

For info on Wal-Mart as monopsonist, see Barry C. Lynn's article in the July 2006 Harper's

Barry Lynn is a fag. 129.10.244.54 02:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examples Part II

Could we please have a graph of a competative labor market, so as to be able to compare it to the monopsony graph.

Ditto for having examples from product markets and not just labor markets. 129.10.244.54 02:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rephrasing?

Is it just me or does this article sound like an academic paper designed for economists? Would it be possible to water down the syntax so the average joe like myself can understand it?

[edit] Examples III

Theory is all well and good, but how does this play out in terms of historical examples? Interesting ones outside the staid realms of modern-day mega-corporations would be wonderful. To what extent can the Dutch East India Company or British East India Company be considered to have been monopsonistic? LordAmeth 19:02, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a monopsonist penalty?

I was surprised to find no discussion of the possible penalty a monopsonist might suffer. The example I have in mind is that of NASA which has to buy launchers (rockets) from US companies. There are only two builders of large launchers at present, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. Their prices are high compared with non-US suppliers, eg the Russian Proton launcher. To some extent NASA is unable to bargain for better prices because there are no other customers to set a market rate. The non-US launch companies don't seem to provide this 'reality check' on prices. NASA's monopsonist position is only approximately correct because the US military is the largest customer for these launchers, but as both are branches of the US government there is at root only one customer. Has this monopsonist penalty effect been discussed in the economics literature? 131.142.52.215 19:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)Martin E