Opportunity Cost, Advantage & Growth Practice
Two countries can each produce two goods. Use their production data to plot each country's production possibilities frontier (PPF), then answer questions about opportunity cost, absolute advantage, comparative advantage, and specialization. At the end, you'll see two separate examples of events that change production, where you plot the new PPF yourself. When you're done, select Check Answers, then download your result image to submit.
Production data
| Country | Good X | Good Y |
|---|
Each row shows the maximum units a country could make of that good if it devoted all its resources to it (its production possibilities frontier is a straight line between these two points). Opportunity cost is constant along each country's PPF.
Plot the production possibilities frontiers
Opportunity cost
Absolute & comparative advantage
Specialization, trade & consumption
Shifting the PPF
Two separate examples below — something happens to change how much a country can produce. In each one, read what happens, then drag the line to show what its PPF looks like afterward.
How to know which way to drag:
- If the event affects the whole economy, both goods go up or down together. Just drag the line right (more of both goods) or left (less of both goods) — we only check the direction, not the exact amount.
- If the event affects only one industry, only that good's amount changes and the other stays the same. The example will tell you the exact new number — drag that axis's point to match it exactly.
Worked example: Suppose a country invents a new machine that helps it make more cars, and it says the country can now produce up to 30 cars (up from 20), with no effect on its wheat production. That's a one-industry change, so you'd drag the point on the cars axis from 20 out to exactly 30, leaving the wheat side of the line where it was.