The assumptions of the model of perfect competition, taken together, imply that individual buyers and sellers in a perfectly competitive market accept the market price as given No one buyer or seller has any influence over that price Individuals or firms who must take the market price as given are called price takers A consumer or firm that takes the market price as given has no ability to influence that price A price-taking firm or consumer is like an individual who is buying or selling stocks He or she looks up the market price and buys or sells at that price The price is determined by demand and supply in the market—not by individual buyers or sellers In a perfectly competitive market, each firm and each consumer is a price taker A price-taking consumer assumes that he or she can purchase any quantity at the market price—without affecting that price Similarly, a price-taking firm assumes it can sell whatever quantity it wishes at the market price without affecting the price You are a price taker when you go into a store You observe the prices listed and make a choice to buy or not Your choice will not affect that price Should you sell a textbook back to your campus bookstore at the end of a course, you are a price-taking seller You are confronted by a market price and you decide whether to sell or not Your decision will not affect that price To see how the assumptions of the model of perfect competition imply price-taking behavior, let us examine each of them in turn Identical Goods In a perfectly competitive market for a good or service, one unit of the good or service cannot be differentiated from any other on any basis A Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen Saylor URL: http://www.saylor.org/books/ Saylor.org 466