The price charged by a profit-maximizing monopolist is:

A profit-maximizing monopolist sets its price above the marginal cost of production, contrary to perfectly competitive markets where firms are price takers and set their prices equal to marginal costs. In a monopolistic structure, the firm faces a downward-sloping demand curve, which means that to sell more units, it must reduce the price, impacting its overall pricing strategy.

A monopolist determines its price by first calculating the quantity where marginal revenue equals marginal cost, which is the profit-maximizing level of output. Given that the monopolist restricts output to increase prices, the price charged is greater than the marginal cost. Thus, the monopolist will typically set a higher price compared to perfectly competitive markets, where firms produce at a point ensuring price equals marginal cost and are unable to influence market prices.

The other choices misrepresent the monopolist's pricing behavior. The price in a monopolistic market cannot be equal to that in competitive markets since that would imply zero economic profit, contradicting the monopolist's goal of maximizing profits. Similarly, claiming the price is lower than in competitive markets overlooks the fundamental nature of monopolistic pricing. Lastly, equating the price to the average total cost ignores the monopolist's potential to earn economic profits by charging a