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American and Japanese workers can each produce 4 cars a year
American and Japanese workers can each produce 4 cars a year. An American worker can produce 10 tons of grain a year, whereas a Japanese worker can produce 5 tons of grain a year. To keep things simple, assume that each country has 100 million workers.
a. For this situation, construct a table analogous to Table 3-1.
b. Graph the production possibilities frontier of the American and Japanese economies.
c. For the United States, what is the opportunity cost of a car? Of grain? For Japan, what is the opportunity cost of a car? Of grain? Put this information in a table analogous to Table 3-3.
d. Which country has an absolute advantage in producing cars? In producing grain?
e. Which country has a comparative advantage in producing cars? In producing grain?
f. Without trade, half of each country’s workers produce cars and half produce grain. What quantities of cars and grain does each country produce?
g. Starting from a position without trade, give an example in which trade makes each country better off.
Maria can read 20 pages of economics in an hour
Maria can read 20 pages of economics in an hour. She can also read 50 pages of sociology in an hour. She spends 5 hours per day studying.
a. Draw Maria’s production possibilities frontier for reading economics and sociology.
b. What is Maria’s opportunity cost of reading 100 pages of sociology?
Consider the farmer and the rancher from our example in this chapter
Consider the farmer and the rancher from our example in this chapter. Explain why the farmer’s opportunity cost of producing 1 pound of meat is 2 pounds of potatoes. Explain why the rancher’s opportunity cost of producing 1 pound of meat is 1/8 pound of potatoes.