商务英语之市场价格.docVIP

Chapter 3 Market Pricing In this chapter we look at how prices are established and how prices function as a system to allocate resources between markets. Price is the monetary value of a product, which is normally established by supply and demand and is an important economic concept. 1. What is a market? The term market has many meanings. To some people it means the place where they shop for groceries. To other people it means the stock market. To a manufacturer of women’s dresses it means the current level of demand for dresses. The simplest way to define a market is to think of it as consisting of all the people or organizations that may have an interest in purchasing a company’s products or services.? In this chapter we will think of a market as a set of economic forces called supply and demand. A market is a group of sellers and buyers of a particular good/service. The buyers determine the demand for the product and the sellers determine the supply of the product. Supply and demand forces interact to form a price. A market economy is an economic system in which prices determine how resources will be used and how products will be distributed. Markets are very different: If there are many sellers and buyers we have a competitive market and no one seller or buyer can influence the price. If there is one seller and many buyers we have a monopoly. If there are a few sellers and many buyers we have oligopoly If there are many sellers and only one buyer we have a monopsony. If each product is slightly different (e.g. blue jeans) then sellers have some price setting power and we have a monopolistic market. Economists assume that there are a number of different buyers and sellers in the marketplace. This means that we have competition in the market, which allows price to change in response to changes in?supply and demand. Furthermore, for almost every product there are substitutes, so if one product becomes too expensive, a buyer can choose a cheaper substitute ins