Consider two neighboring island countries called Arcadia and Dolorium. They each have 4 million labor hours available per week that they can use to produce jeans, corn, or a combination of both. The following table shows the amount of jeans or corn that can be produced using 1 hour of labor. Country
Jeans
Corn
(Pairs per hour of labor)
(Bushels per hour of labor)
Arcadia 5 10
Dolorium 4 16
Initially, suppose Arcadia uses 1 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 3 million hours per week to produce corn, while Dolorium uses 3 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 1 million hours per week to produce corn. Consequently, Arcadia produces 5 million pairs of jeans and 30 million bushels of corn, and Dolorium produces 12 million pairs of jeans and 16 million bushels of corn. 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 corn it produces.
Arcadia's opportunity cost of producing 1 pair of jeans is of corn, and Dolorium's opportunity cost of producing 1 pair of jeans is
of corn. Therefore, has a comparative advantage in the production of jeans, and has a comparative advantage in the production of corn.
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 corn will produce ___ million bushels per week.
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 13 million pairs of jeans to the other country in exchange for 39 million bushels of corn.
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 17 million pairs per week, and the total production of corn was 46 million bushels per week. Because of specialization, the total production of jeans has increased by ___ million pairs per week, and the total production of corn has increased by million bushels per week.
Because the two countries produce more jeans and more corn under specialization, each country is able to gain from trade.
Calculate the gains from trade—that 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").
Arcadia Jeans Corn (Millions of pairs) (Millions of bushels) Dolorium Jeans Corn (Millions of pairs) (Millions of bushels) 16 Without Trade Production Consumption With Trade 12 Production Trade action Consumption Gains from Trade Increase in Consumption onsumption