In neoclassical economics, a market distortion is any event in which a market reaches a market clearing price for an item that is substantially different from the price that a market would achieve while operating under conditions of perfect competition and state enforcement of legal contracts and the ownership of private property.

In this context, "perfect competition" means:

Many different kinds of events, actions, policies, or beliefs can bring about a market distortion. For example:


This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Market distortion, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.