买方寡占(Oligopsony)
目录 |
买方寡占是指市场上有少数几个购买者。在此,相对于制造商作为供应商、卖方的角色定位,将零售商定位为购买者、买方。当市场上只有少数几个零售商时,就形成了“买方寡占”。
买方垄断与买方寡占在含义上是不一样的,买方垄断是指在一个市场上只有一个购买者。
An oligopsony is a market form in which the number of buyers is small while the number of sellers in theory could be large. This typically happens in market for inputs where a small number of firms are competing to obtain factors of production. It contrasts with an oligopoly, where there are many buyers but just a few sellers. An oligopsony is a form of imperfect competition.
The terms monopoly (one seller), monopsony (one buyer), and bilateral monopoly have a similar relationship.
One example of an oligopsony in the world economy is cocoa, where three firms (Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, and Callebaut) buy the vast majority of world cocoa bean production, mostly from small farmers in third-world countries. Likewise, American tobacco growers face an oligopsony of cigarette makers, where three companies (Altria, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard Tobacco Company) buy almost 90% of all tobacco grown in the US.[citation needed]
In each of these cases, the buyers have a major advantage over the sellers. They can play off one supplier against another, thus lowering their costs. They can also dictate exact specifications to suppliers, for delivery schedules, quality, and (in the case of agricultural products) crop varieties. They also pass off much of the risks of overproduction, natural losses, and variations in cyclical demand to the suppliers.