Wish that was true but in real life collusion is much easier to maintain. For example, a collusion deal usually entails higher prices which means that to benefi

Wish that was true but in real life collusion is much easier to maintain. For example, a collusion deal usually entails higher prices which means that to benefit of cheating one has to lower prices and make money on volume. But sometimes it is not as easy to make money on volume. Often you need time and capital investments to increase volume. But if the other colluding companies see you making the capital investments to get higher volume they will know you are planning to cheat and they will drop their agreement as well. At that point you get no sales advantage of cheating and yet you have spent a lot of money making to create the goods for an expected sales increase. Oh, and everyone else in industry hates your guts. So sometimes in the real world it is much easier for an executive to collude and pocket his/her bonus than to compete.