What are the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market?

Question

Respond to the question below that has been assigned to you by this Thursday and then respond to TWO of your classmates responses (in an area different than your initial response) by Sunday.  Please try not to replicate other's responses and include the topic you are responding to at the beginning of your post.

What are the characteristics of a perfectly competitive market?

What is the difference between variable and fixed costs, how do they change in short-run vs. long-run? Provide an example in healthcare.

What does increasing returns mean in the short-run? Provide an example of increasing returns?

From an economic perspective, at what point does a firm decide to shut-down? Explain.

When a market is perfectly competitive what does this imply about the supply curve and the price charged for a particular good?

What is the level of profits in the long-run in a perfectly competitive market? Explain why.

What is the difference between an economic and accounting profit?

What is the principle of diminishing marginal return?

In this week’s readings the Health Affairs article on Proposed Payer Mergers, what does the article say will happen to the commercial insurance market in insurers are allowed to merge?

What conditions must exist for a firm to be able to price discriminate?

What is the Herfindahl Index?

What factors allow a firm to have monopoly profits?

What are the pros and cons of merger activity? Why would the government want to prevent mergers?

What are the characteristics of monopolistic competition?

Why is understanding market structure important in health economics, what does it impact?

What is a Nash Equilibrium?