Tag: economics

Opportunity cost of production of a commodity refers to the resources which have to be sacrifice in terms of the next best alternative which could have been produced using the same resources.
Therefore, the next best alternative which could be produced on the piece of land mentioned here is 80 tonnes of wheat, which is sacrificed for the production of 100 kg of rice.

The question for "How to produce?" is faced by the economy they should consider both labour intensive techniques as well as capital intensive techniques depending upon the availability of resources in the economy.

Scarcity of resources refers to the situation where resources are limited in quantity and have alternative uses in production of various commodities. So the problem of these scarce resources is reflected in the aggregate supply of the economy which is also limited owing to limited source of inputs and unlimited demands as human wants are unlimited. 

Output of Good-X decreases by 500 units and output of Good-Y increases by 500 units, when some resources are shifted from the production of X to the production of Y. The marginal opportunity cost is 1.0. The slope of production possibility curve is marginal opportunity cost which refers to the additional sacrifice that a firm makes when they shift resources and technology from production of one commodity to the other. The formula to calculate marginal opportunity cost is sacrifice/gains. Therefore, the marginal opportunity cost is 500/500= 1.

In a free economy, the producers will produce goods for those who can afford to pay high price. Poorer sections of the society are often, thus, ignored. As a result, the gap between the rich and the poor enhances.

The slope of production possibility curve is the marginal opportunity cost, which refers to the additional sacrifice that an economy needs to make when it shifts resources and technology from production of one commodity to the other. Since resources are use specific, therefore every time when one more unit of a commodity is produced more units of the other commodity is sacrificed that results in increasing marginal opportunity cost.  

The central economic problems rise for the basic fact that the resources in the economy is scarce whereas the wants are unlimited. Therefore, it deals with the efficient allocation of the resources for the production of goods and services in the economy and regulations/intervention of the government can do little about central economic problems.

In a free market economy, prices of commodities in the market are affected by the forces of demand and supply. This generates open competition in the market which leads to optimum allocation and utilization of resources in the economy without any planning or intervention of any authority.

The slope of production possibility curve shows the marginal opportunity cost which refers to the additional sacrifice that an economy must make when they shift resources and technology from production of one commodity to the other. Since resources are use specific, therefore, each time when one more unit of a commodity is produced a larger quantity of the other commodity is required to be sacrificed. This results in increasing marginal opportunity cost., which is denoted by the slope of the PPC.