Since we said a monopolist should always increase price if demand
is inelastic, the obvious question is: Why do any products have prices low enough that demand is inelastic?
There are few true monopolies in the US (in part because of
anti-trust legislation). If a firm raises prices and its competitors
don't, then it will find that sales fall more than the demand curve
would have suggested, and profits will fall. If this were not the case, there would be no products
with inelastic demand. (This is covered in more detail in the sections on Monopoly
and Oligopoly.)
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