MARKET STRUCTURE: The manner in which a market is organized, based largely on the number of firms in the industry. The four basic market structure models are: perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly. The primary difference between each is the number of firms on the supply side of a market. Both perfect competition and monopolistic competition have a large number of relatively small firms selling output. Oligopoly has a small number of relatively large firms. And monopoly has a single firm.

     See also | market | industry | perfect competition | monopoly | monopolistic competition | oligopoly | market control | price taker | price maker |