Conceptual Evolution Of Prices And Competition

The concept of competition has a central role in the literature, and diversity approaches, definitions and models for analyzing important aspects of actors' behavior in the market economy ensured the continuous development of this concept. The competition approach followed faithful stages of the development of human society, starting initially from a more intuitive “vision”, evolving then to a political approach, so that, finally, it is confined to a perspective conceptual and doctrinal belonging to jurists and economists. Modern legal regulations have taken it from the usual language, completing it with new features in order to adopt the requirements of contemporary economic life. In general, competition means a confrontation, a struggle between adverse tendencies that converge towards the same goal. At the social level, there is sometimes opposition between individual and general social interests, between rights and obligations, between altruistic or selfish manifestations. In economic and commercial terms, competition was understood from the beginning as a decisive factor in productive and trade activity. Some modern authors reduce part of the role and efficiency of competition, considering it as a type of behavior of companies and a specific way of market activity. As an essential feature of the market economy, competition is a situation in a market, in which the producing or selling companies dispute the supremacy of the buyers in order to achieve a certain business objective (eg profits, sales and/ or a market segment). In this context, competition is equated with "rivalry". Therefore, rivalry between firms may occur when there are two or more producers of the same product, work, or service. The equilibrium of the market is called in the economy the situation in a market, in which the price of an economic good leads to an equality between the quantity demanded and the quantity offered. The price is called the equilibrium price, and the quantity is called the equilibrium quantity.