Question

New Zealand and Spain each produce apples and plums. New Zealand can produce a maximum of 60 apples or 15 plums or some combination of both. Spain can produce a maximum of 60 apples or 60 plums or some combination of both. If they decide to specialize and trade, the trade rate is 25 apples for 17 plums.a. Which nation should specialize in plums and which should specialize in apples

Answer 1

New Zealand should specialize in apples.

Spain should specialize in plums.

Step-by-step explanation:

As per the given production possibility tables, New Zealand must produce maximum apples in the available resources while Spain is able to produce maximum plums with the given resources. To produce 1 plum, New Zealand requires resources equivalent to 4 apples. This shows that New Zealand needs to specialize in apples for efficient utilization of resources. Although the cost of producing plum and apple is almost equivalent for Spain since, New Zealand is already involved in producing apples, It must go for Plums.