Product Differentiation

Harold Lydall

Chapter 6 in A Critique of Orthodox Economics, 1998, pp 85-100 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract It has already been pointed out that perfect competition is, and probably always has been, a rare phenomenon. The closest approximation to perfect competition has been in the markets for primary products, the qualities of which are largely determined by nature. Even here, there have always been variations between farmers in the qualities of their products, and some variations also in the qualities of mineral products, depending on their natural qualities and on the processes to which they have been subjected. As soon as mankind rose above the level of hunting and gathering and became ‘producers’, who incorporated their labour and intelligence into their products, there was bound to be some variation in quality between the products of different producers. It has been argued above that each producer has his or her own private technology, and that there may be considerable variations between different producers in this respect, even when they are making approximately the ‘same’ product. Product differentiation is the inevitable result of the intervention of the human factor in production. To a large extent, it is the expression of differences in private technology.

Keywords: Product Differentiation; Small Firm; Demand Curve; Average Cost; Input Price (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-37987-9_6

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230379879

DOI: 10.1057/9780230379879_6

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().