Explain the Dominant Firm Model and apply it to the OPEC cartel to explain why they have been successful in maintaining world oil prices above competitive levels. Use a diagram to illustrate your answer.
Under the dominant firm model the large firm acts as a dominant firm and sets the price of the product and the fringe firms act as a price taker and behave as a price competitors.
The OPEC cartel behaved as a dominant firm in the market for oil. We can look at this using the diagram.
In the diagram TD is the total demand for oil and S(non-OPEC) is the competitive supply curve. The demand for OPEC is the difference between the total demand and the supply by the non-OPEC firms..
The total demand and supply of non- OPEC firm are inelastic. Therefore the demand for OPEC firms will also be inelastic OPEC’s profit maximizing quantity is given by Qopec and charges price = P*. If the OPEC cartel didn’t exist then price will be at PC where the MC opec intersects its demand.
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