Question

3. Gains from trade Consider two neighboring island countries called Bellissima and Euphoria. They each have 4 million labor hours available per week 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 eans Country(Pairs per hour of Iabor) Bellissima Euphoria Rye (Bushels per hour of labor) 12 16 4 Initially, suppose Bellissima uses 1 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 3 million hours per week to produce rye, while Euphoria uses 3 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 1 million hours per week to produce rye. Consequently, Bellissima produces 6 million pairs of jeans and 36 million bushels of rye, and Euphoria produces 12 million pairs of jeans and 16 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 Bellissima's opportunity cost of producing 1 pair of jeans is of rye, and Euphoria'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 million pairs per week, and the country that produces rye will produce million bushels per week

Answer 1