In economics, a government monopoly or public monopoly is a form of coercive monopoly in which a government agency or government corporation is the sole provider of a particular good or service and competition is prohibited by law. It is a monopoly created, owned, and operated by the government. It is usually distinguished from a government-granted monopoly, where the government grants a monopoly to a private individual or company.
A government monopoly may be run by any level of government—national, regional, local; for levels below the national, it is a local monopoly. The term state monopoly usually means a government monopoly run by the national government.