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

International economics: Theory & policy, In a day of production, firms in ...

In a day of production, firms in angola can produce 200 liters of oil or 10 kilograms of tungsten. Firms in Namibia can produce 160 liters of oil or 60 kilograms of tungsten. Which

What is international relationship, International relations (IR) is the stu...

International relations (IR) is the study of relationships among countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental or

Long term self-generated economic growth, Q. It can be argued that Japan's...

Q. It can be argued that Japan's explicit promotion of its microchip industry was an excellent paradigm of successful industrial policy. What criteria could you apply to calculat

What is the national income identity for an open economy, Q. What is the n...

Q. What is the national income identity for an open economy? Answer: Y = C + I + G + EX - IM.

Floating exchange-rate regime, Q. Why would you suggest to a govern...

Q. Why would you suggest to a government to use a floating exchange-rate regime? Answer: Floating Exchange Rate is an exchange rate in which central banks don't inter

Trade theory, discuss the possibility of trade if factor endowment are iden...

discuss the possibility of trade if factor endowment are identical and tasde is different

Relative capital abundance, Q . Consider that the relative capital abundanc...

Q . Consider that the relative capital abundance of Australia was so much greater than that of Sri-Lanka, that we would have to locate Australia far to the right on the K/L axis.

Could relative wages in the two countries become equal, Q. If trade were t...

Q. If trade were to open up between R and P, where could the world terms of trade locate in the figure above (somewhere on the PC/PF axis)? Could relative wages (w/r) in the two c

Peripheral Capitalism, I am writing a paper on dependancy theory in Ghana a...

I am writing a paper on dependancy theory in Ghana and I am having trouble understanding the basics of peripheral capitalism.

Discuss the relationship between the u.s. real money supply, Q. To answer t...

Q. To answer the following question, please refer to the figure below. Concentrating only at the lower left quadrant, discuss the relationship between the U.S. real money supply a

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