Concept of comparative advantage, International Economics

Assignment Help:

The Concept of Comparative Advantage is explained below:

To illustrate the concept of the comparative advantage, we take the instance of two equi-sized equi-endowment countries, which are US and UK. US produces 40 and 60 units of cotton and food p.a. respectively (using all available resources), while the UK produces 30 and 20 units of cotton and food p.a. respectively (using all the available resources). Clearly, the US has complete advantage in the production of both cotton and food. By absolute advantage it is meant that the US is more efficient at producing food and cotton both than the UK. But, upon computing the opportunity costs of producing cotton and food in the either country, is revealed that the opportunity cost of producing one unit of the cotton in the US is 1.5 units of food, while the opportunity cost of producing one unit of food in the US is 0.67 units of cotton. Similarly the opportunity cost of producing one unit of the cotton in the UK is 0.67 units of food, whereas the opportunity cost of producing one unit of food in the UK is 1.5 units of cotton. Hence, the US has a lower opportunity cost (comparative advantage) in production of food while the UK has a lower opportunity cost (comparative advantage) in production of cotton. By specializing in the goods/commodities they have comparative advantage in and then trading between them, both the countries can improve their consumption possibilities beyond those implied by autarky (that is a situation of no trade where the PPF and CPF are the same).

 




 


Related Discussions:- Concept of comparative advantage

Important benefits enjoyes by companies through TRIPs, Describe the importa...

Describe the important benefits enjoyed by indian companies through TRIPs. Elaborate the main objective of WTO in global ecomommy

Offer a subsidy to a profitable and successful business, Q. How could the ...

Q. How could the U.S. government justify its decision to offer a subsidy to a profitable and successful business? Answer: It could indicate that this $10 million pump-priming

What do you think about dollarization, Q. What do you think about dol...

Q. What do you think about dollarization? Answer: The respond is almost certainly a bad idea unless in the very short run. It must talk about the loss of seigniorage a

Long-term economic growth, Q. It is argued that import substitution is a m...

Q. It is argued that import substitution is a misguided trade policy if the intent is to show long-term economic growth. Illustrate the reasons underlying this argument. Answe

Explain interest rate differential according to ppp theory, Describe and e...

Describe and explain the relationship between expected inflation rates in two countries and their interest rate differential according to the PPP theory. Answer:  Expected pric

Analyze the effects of an increase in the u.s. money supply, By Using the f...

By Using the figure describing both the U.S. money market and The foreign exchange market, analyze the effects of an increase in the U.S. money supply on the dollar or euro exchang

Global economics, How have global economic institutions(e.g. IMF,WB, and WT...

How have global economic institutions(e.g. IMF,WB, and WTO) been influenced by American values? Why have developing countries found it so difficult to adopt the neo-liberal econom

Internal goals of full employment and price stability, Q. How did the inter...

Q. How did the international monetary system created at Bretton Woods in 1944 allow its members to reconcile their external commitments with their internal goals of full employment

Consumers and businesses, if the US dollar depreciates dramatically relativ...

if the US dollar depreciates dramatically relative to the Chinese yuan, what effect would this have on consumers and businesses in each country? When is a falling dollar good or ba

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd