Chapter 15

I would give this chapter a difficulty of 1.5. I thought that it seemed relatively simple and logical with its concepts and and it built a bit on what we had previously learned in other chapters. The chapter showed the social costs of monopolies and how they can arise. The three main reasons were from the government, from being a "natural monopoly", or from the less common monopoly based off of the control of resources. Monopolies can have a detriment to welfare and cause dead-weight loss however because of the price being higher than the socially efficient quantity. Monopolies can also be positive however in the sense that they increase the incentive for research and in the case of natural monopolies, can reduce prices for the consumer. If monopolies are well managed and regulated they can be positive sometimes but it's the government's job to ensure that this happens.