Often times many students are completely surprised by the sometimes counterintuitive conclusions of economic science.We have discussed many of these this semester.For example, why raising the minimum wage for lower-skilled workers to improve their earnings prospects actually reduces their opportunities and makes them worse off(the policy creates more unemployment in the very demographic that the policy maker is trying to help).Another one we discussed extensively was the "broken window" fallacy, or the proposition that destruction creates economic growth.There are countless others.Try your hand at explaining the one below.

We talked quite a bit about textbook monopoly theory and its potential weaknesses.Why

does the theory appear to be inapplicable (that is, why doesn't there seem to be much

evidence in the real world for the existence free market monopolies)?