Question

Price discrimination is the practice of charging different prices for the same product that are not justified by cost differences. Evaluate the following statement: "Price discrimination is not possible when a good is sold in a perfectly competitive market." False, because perfectly competitive firms do not profit maximize by setting marginal revenue equal to marginal cost False, because perfectly competitive firms have market power None of these choices True, because perfectly competitive firms have no market power

Answer 1

Answer:

Because firms in a perfectly competitive market does not have any price making ability or market power,they are not able to engage in any price discrimination.Hence,the correct answer is  the last option or True,because perfectly competitive firms have no market power.

Explanation:

In Microeconomics,perfectly competitive markets are characterized by many buyers and sellers in which the sellers and firms usually sell homogeneous or identical products.Now,as there are many firms in the market and no barriers to entry for new firms into the market,the market competition or rivalry is high and hence,no single firm has the ability to determine and manipulate the market price according to their own economic advantage because if any firm tries to do so,it will loose significant market share as most customers would move to other sellers/firms charging lower price or regular market price.Therefore,the market price is fixed in the perfectly competitive market as the firms do not have price making or market power.Consequently,they are not able to charge different prices to different customers according to their maximum willingness to pay or differences in price preferences.