Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A market condition in which sellers are so few that the actions of any one of them will materially affect price and have a measurable impact on competitors.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An
economic condition in which a small number ofsellers exertcontrol over themarket of acommodity .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (economics) a market in which control over the supply of a commodity is in the hands of a small number of producers and each one can influence prices and affect competitors
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Google has a mid term oligopoly on search aggregation.
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Without controlling 100% (or at least very close to it) of the oil market, they have no shot at effectively engaging in oligopoly price setting.
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The standard Cournot model of an oligopoly is shown not to have a phase transition, as it is equivalent to a continuum version of the Curie-Weiss model.
Strange Science 2005
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The industry is also a monopoly -- or an oligopoly, which is many firms acting like a monopoly.
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The music industry is nothing but an oligopoly, which is a group of big companies acting as a monopoly.
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The music industry is nothing but an oligopoly, which is a group of big companies acting as a monopoly.
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For the record, oligopsony is the flip side of oligopoly, that is, a small number of buyers, in this case, of labor services.
Rational Review 2009
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And don't be fooled by the dictionary definition that "oligopoly" does not control the market.
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Everything they will suggest plays right into the hands of the pockets of the medical oligopoly which is lead by the monopolistic AMA.
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Think now of placing some kind of oligopoly game into a business oriented version of World of Warcraft "World of Bizcraft."
sonofgroucho commented on the word oligopoly
More sociable than monopoly. There really should be polypoly!
November 10, 2007
whichbe commented on the word oligopoly
Not to be confused with rolypoly.
October 20, 2008