legislated for, with legislative instruments precluding competitive activities regarding the provision of goods or services. A poorly contestable market exists, with competition previously operating inefficiently despite the lack of legal restrictions. Evidence of exercising market power The primary determinations of demonstrating the market power of state monopolies are: The monopoly’s economic income within the market is characterized by disproportionate returns on its existing asset base. This income would be excessive, if it were not a result of its inefficient operations. There is a substantial difference between best practice benchmarks within private organisations, and the state monopoly’s own productive efficiency. For example, a monopoly’s lack of productive efficiency could be resultant of gold plating of assets. The monopoly cross-subsidies incomes between loss-making activities and profitable activities. If the aforementioned occurs through production or pricing behaviors, this suggests usual competitive forces characteristic of competitive markets are not being applied to the state monopoly. A firm engaging in this practice under normal market conditions, would not survive in the long run. Examples The most prominent example of the monopoly is law and the legitimate use of physical force. In many countries, the postal system is run by the government with competition forbidden by law in some or all services. Also, government monopolies on public utilities, telecommunications and railroads have historically been common, though recent decades have seen a strong privatization trend throughout the industrialized world. In Nordic countries, some goods deemed harmful are distributed through a government monopoly. For example, in Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, government-owned companies have monopolies for selling alcoholic beverages. Casinos and other institutions for gambling might also be monopolized. In Finland, the government has a monopoly to operate slot machines (see Veikkaus). Similar regimes for alcohol exist in the United States, where certain alcoholic beverage control states (ABC states), e.g. Pennsylvania and Virginia, maintain state-owned-and-operated monopolies on the sale of certain kinds of alcohol (typically distilled spirits and sometimes wine or beer). In these monopolies over harmful goods or services, the monopoly is designed to reduce consumption of the product by deliberately decreasing the efficiency of the market. Governments often create or allow monopolies to exist and grant them patents. This limits entry and allow the patent-holding firm to earn a monopoly profit from an invention. Health care systems where the government controls the industry and specifically prohibits competition, such as in Canada, are government monopolies. In spite