The Study of Industries

We have now built up enough background to study what economists call "industrial organization" -- that is, the study of industries, including their organization and structure, how they conduct business, how they respond to change and evolve, and how efficiently they perform.

Economists believe all these things are interrelated, so this is sometimes called a structure/conduct/performance approach.

As usual, the first step will be some terminology. Economists in general recognize four major types of market structures (plus a larger number of subtypes):

"Perfect Competition"
Monopoly
Oligopoly
Monopolistic competition

For now, I will just define the first of the four, and then use concepts related to "Perfect Competition" to define the other three.