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Economic Definition of excess capacity. Defined.

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Term excess capacity Definition: A condition that exists when monopolistic competition achieves long-run equilibrium such that production by each firm is less than minimum efficient scale. The implication of this condition is that each firm is not producing up to its fullest capacity, as would be the case under perfect competition, and thus more firms are need to produce total market output compared to perfect competition. Excess capacity results because market control means a monopolistically competitive firm faces a negatively-sloped demand curve. Long-run equilibrium is thus achieved by the tangency of the negatively-sloped demand curve and the long-run average cost curve, which results in economies to scale.

 

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