ECON 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Comparative Advantage, Autarky, Opportunity Cost

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24 Nov 2016

School

University of Calgary

Department

Economics

Course

ECON 203

Professor

Aamir Hashmi

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ECON 203 Full Course Notes

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*chapter 3, but we skipped it until now. The production possibilities frontier (ppf: represents the maximum production capacity of a country. Trade can expand the ppf and make everyone better off. Comparative advantage: the ability to produce a good at a lower opportunity cost than the other producer. Gains from trade arise from comparative advantage. When countries specialize in the good in which they have a comparative advantage, total production in all countries is higher, the worlds economic pie is bigger, and all countries can gain from trade. This is also applicable at an individual level, with individual producers. Absolute advantage: the ability to produce a good using fewer inputs than the other producer. Recall: a closed economy does not interact with other economies in the world, and an open economy interacts freely with other economies in the world. Net exports (nx): also called trade balance, is equal to value of exports value of imports.

Related Questions

The law of comparative advantage states that:

a. each country should specialize in producing the good with the lowest opportunity cost.

b. a country that is able to produce something using fewer resources than other countries would gain from specialization and trade.

c. international trade barriers slow the introduction of new goods and better technologies.

d. countries can gain from trade if production is subject to economies of scale.

e. countries must agree on how much of one good exchanges for another.

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Q2. (35 points) The following table shows the output of textile and auto one unit of labor can produce in the U.K. and the U.S.:

	Textiles	Autos
United Kingdom	16	4
United States	6	3

A)Which country has an absolute advantage in textiles and which country has an absolute advantage in autos?

B)What is the autarky price ratio of autos relative to textiles in each country?

C)Which country has a comparative advantage in textiles and which country has a comparative advantage in autos?

D)Which product should each country export?

E)Suppose the United States has 300 units of labor available. Construct the production-possibilities frontier (PPF) and identify the optimal autarky equilibrium (using an indifference curve) for the United States.

F)Suppose the international price is set at 1 auto:3 units of textile and the U.S. decides to completely specialize at producing the product in which it has a comparative advantage. How would the above graph change? Use the graph to show the gains from trade and the export and import quantities. For each unit of export good, how much does the U.S. gain (measured in terms of the other good)?

G)Discussion: At what level of international price ratio will all the benefits from trade accrue to the United States?

Your answer:

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3. Gains from trade

Consider two neighboring island countries called Felicidad and Arcadia. They each have 4 million labor hours available per month that they can use to produce jeans, rye, or a combination of both. The following table shows the amount of jeans or rye that can be produced using 1 hour of labor.

Country	Jeans	Rye
Country	(Pairs per hour of labor)	(Bushels per hour of labor)
Felicidad	8	32
Arcadia	12	24

Initially, suppose Arcadia uses 1 million hours of labor per month to produce jeans and 3 million hours per month to produce rye, while Felicidad uses 3 million hours of labor per month to produce jeans and 1 million hours per month to produce rye. Consequently, Felicidad produces 24 million pairs of jeans and 32 million bushels of rye, and Arcadia produces 12 million pairs of jeans and 72 million bushels of rye. Assume there are no other countries willing to trade goods, so, in the absence of trade between these two countries, each country consumes the amount of jeans and rye it produces.

Felicidad's opportunity cost of producing 1 pair of jeans is _____ of rye, and Arcadia's opportunity cost of producing 1 pair of jeans is _____ of rye. Therefore, _____ has a comparative advantage in the production of jeans, and ____ has a comparative advantage in the production of rye.

Suppose that each country completely specializes in the production of the good in which it has a comparative advantage, producing only that good. In this case, the country that produces jeans will produce ______ millions pairs per month, and the country that produces rye will produce ______ millions bushels per month.

In the following table, enter each country's production decision on the third row of the table (marked "Production").

Suppose the country that produces jeans trades 26 million pairs of jeans to the other country in exchange for 78 million bushels of rye.

In the following table, select the amount of each good that each country exports and imports in the boxes across the row marked "Trade Action," and enter each country's final consumption of each good on the line marked "Consumption."

When the two countries did not specialize, the total production of jeans was 36 million pairs per month, and the total production of rye was 104 million bushels per month. Because of specialization, the total production of jeans has increased by ____ million pairs per month, and the total production of rye has increased by _____ million bushels per month.

Because the two countries produce more jeans and more rye under specialization, each country is able to gain from trade.

Calculate the gains from tradeâthat is, the amount by which each country has increased its consumption of each good relative to the first row of the table. In the following table, enter this difference in the boxes across the last row (marked "Increase in Consumption").

	Felicidad		Arcadia
	Jeans	Rye	Jeans	Rye
	(Millions of pairs)	(Millions of bushels)	(Millions of pairs)	(Millions of bushels)
Without Trade
Production	24	32	12	72
Consumption	24	32	12	72
With Trade ? ? ? ?
Production	?	?	?	?
Trade action	?	?	?	?
Consumption	?	?	?	?
Gains from Trade ? ? ? ?
Increase in Consumption	?	?	?	?

ECON 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Comparative Advantage, Autarky, Opportunity Cost

ECON 203 Full Course Notes

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