![]() The first company in the world to publicly trade its stock (offer shares of ownership to private investors), the Dutch East India Company was highly profitable for nearly 150 years before the sugar trade declined and shipments were increasingly lost to pirates at sea and gangs on land. Like the British East India Company, the Dutch East India Company was granted a 21-year monopoly on trade in Asia. The Dutch East India Company received its charter in 1602 from the States-General of the Netherlands. In 1858 England dissolved the British East India Company after a series of uprisings against the company known collectively as the Indian Mutiny. The British East India Company had holdings elsewhere in Asia, as well as in Africa. The British East India Company acquired considerable authority in India because, over time, the English government bestowed political and military powers on the company so that it could protect England’s interests in the colony. The charter gave the organization a 21-year monopoly on all trade between England and the East Indies. Queen Elizabeth I of Great Britain granted the British East India Company a royal charter on December 31, 1600. The British East India Company and the Dutch East India Company were two of the earliest government-granted monopolies. Prior to the 1990s energy companies in many developing nations operated as government-granted monopolies for the same reason that AT&T enjoyed this privilege for a time in the United States. The best way to ensure that AT&T would have the appropriate customer base was to eliminate the prospect of competition. A phone company could only make money if it was large and served numerous customers, so that the average cost of serving each individual customer would be reduced. The federal government reasoned that Americans needed affordable and reliable telephone service it also thought that the communications industry could only sustain one producer because operating costs (the telephone poles and lines, the call centers, the research and development, the repairs, and the monthly power bills, to name just a few expenses associated with running the enterprise) were so high. In the United States, for example, AT&T functioned as a government-granted monopoly from 1913 until 1984. ![]() Government-granted monopolies are usually established because they are perceived to be the best option for producers and consumers. In some cases of government-granted monopolies, the government identifies itself as the sole provider of the good or service. When a government grants a monopoly, it often regulates the price of the product or service that the firm holding the monopoly may charge its customers. Government-Granted Monopoly What It MeansĪ government-granted monopoly is a legal form of monopoly in which the government grants one individual or corporation the right to be the sole provider of a good or service. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |