Question

Cartel agreements are difficult to maintain because individual members True or False

Answer 1

Answer:

True

Explanation:

Cartel

It is important to define a cartel before explaining the question. A Cartel represents a group of firms that come together for making price and output decisions about their products.

Monopoly is one of the main reasons for the rise of Cartels. Cartel members are organisations in markets where there are very few firms and each firm has a significant share of the markets. An example of this is the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

The Petroleum market is monopolistic in the sense that a few countries are responsible for the crude oil and related products that are used by all countries around the world, hence, OPEC was formed to regulate the actions; production level and price of the Oil produced and processed for regulatory purposes.

Why it is difficult to maintain Cartel Agreements

It is difficult to maintain cartel agreements because individual members will always attempt to cheat and by-pass the agreement to produce beyond the agreed quota just to increase their share of the cartel's profits.

Individual members can always produce above their quota to take advantage of the large market and monopolistic situation to make more monopoly profit.

This difficulty is one of the reasons why there are few Cartels available and it is also why the OPEC has had difficulties monitoring the activities of its members over the years.