A dominant firm in the cloud-storage industry, EtherVault, experiences a change in its operating environment. Which of the following developments is most likely to increase EtherVault's monopoly power by raising the barriers to entry for potential competitors?
An industry-wide regulatory mandate establishing open-source data portability standards for all consumers
A technological breakthrough that significantly reduces the minimum efficient scale of data-center operations relative to total market demand
A substantial increase in the upfront, non-recoverable research and development (R&D) expenditure required to obtain security certification
An increase in the availability of venture capital funding specifically targeting early-stage infrastructure start-ups
136 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Economics 1.5 Perfect competition, imperfectly competitive markets and monopoly, covering 1.5.1 Market structures, 1.5.2 The objectives of firms, 1.5.3 Perfect competition, 1.5.4 Monopolistic competition (A-level only), 1.5.5 Oligopoly (A-level only), 1.5.6 Monopoly and monopoly power, 1.5.7 Price discrimination (A-level only), 1.5.8 The dynamics of competition and competitive market processes, 1.5.9 Contestable and non-contestable markets (A-level only), 1.5.10 Market structure, static efficiency, dynamic efficiency and resource allocation (A-level only), and 1.5.11 Consumer and producer surplus (A-level only). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.