A few years ago, I ran across an interesting word in the Wall Street Journal. The article was about postal box manufacturers of which there are a few and the customers of which there is one, the US Post Office.

We all know that a market with many buyers and one seller is a monopoly. With a limited number of sellers, it is an oligopoly.

What is the term for a market that only has many sellers, but only a single buyer?

If nobody gets it, I will post the answer in a few days.

-Jay

From the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
When the number of sellers is quite large,
and each seller's share of the market is so small that in
practice he cannot, by changing his selling price or
output, perceptibly influence the market share or income
of any competing seller, economists speak of "atomistic
competition".
I suspect that there is some word such as monoemptor or uniemptor.

Interesting. The word that I had seen was rooted in Greek as monopoly and oligopoly are.

Through all of the economics classes that I ever took, this word was never mentioned. It is a rare market condition.

-Jay

According to Random House Unabridged the word you're looking for is:

monopsony -- the market condition that exists when there is one buyer [1930-35 MON- + Gk osponia, purchase of provisions]

--W. Rivers

Wrivers is correct. "Monopsony" is a well-known term to economists.

The term "Monopsony" is like the home term of economists