By: Adrian Khiat There are 4 types of economic markets: (1) Perfect Competition, (2) Monopolistic Competition, (3) Oligopoly and (4) Monopoly 1) Perfect Competition - Exist when all the firms in the market produce identical products. Large number of independent firms. Each seller is small relative to total market and barrier to entry is low. 2) Monopolistic Competition - Large number of firms produce (slightly) differentiated products. Firm complete on price, quality and marketing. Barrier to entry is low. 3) Oligopoly - Small number of firms with similar or slightly different products. Profits to be made are interdependent on competitors' decisions. Can collude to form a monopoly. 4) Monopoly - One seller of specific, well-defined products that has no good substitutes and high barrier to entry. I am not an economist. I like to share 10 short points on how Economics apply to the Insurance Industry and 8 points on how I feel about my analysis. Read more...