Time for an honest moment here, stop and think about how much advertising influences your consumption decisions. When is the last time you can remember choosing one product over another because of advertising?

With this question being our starting point, it would be great to see if people can also address the following issues:

• What role does advertising play in influencing consumption in monopolistic competition?
• Does the impact of advertising allow for some price leverage by firms in this market structure? Why or why not?
• Is the United States truly an economy that promotes competition?
• Think about the markets where major oligopolies exist, for instance soft drinks/fast foods and automobile manufacturing, is there really a free market place or do oligopolies/major corporations dominate our economy?