The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation: A Game-Theoretic Analysis

Abstract

The theory of rent-seeking is that monopoly profits attract resources directed into efforts to obtain these profits and that the opportunity costs of these resources are a social cost of monopoly. This article shows that monopoly rents remain untransformed to the extent that firms are inframarginal in the competition for them and thereby earn profits. Different fixed organization costs can produce inframarginal firms. In a situation where a monopoly franchise is periodically reassigned, the incumbent may possess an advantage in the next year's hearings. This also results in untransformed rents.