Статья "Monopoly" Джорджа Стиглера (George Stigler) в The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: A monopoly is an enterprise that is the only seller of a good or service. In the absence of government intervention, a monopoly is free to set any price it chooses and will usually set the price that yields the largest possible profit. Just being a monopoly need not make an enterprise more profitable than other enterprises that face competition: the market may be so small that it barely supports one enterprise. But if the monopoly is in fact more profitable than competitive enterprises, economists expect that other entrepreneurs will enter the business to capture some of the higher returns. If enough rivals enter, their competition will drive prices down and eliminate monopoly power. Before and during the period of the classical economics (roughly 1776 to 1850), most people believed that this process of monopolies being eroded by new competitors was pervasive. The only monopolies that could...

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