Question

A country has two main products: hats and grapes. The country decides to start making more and more hats and fewer and fewer grapes. Why does the opportunity cost of making hats increase as more and more hats are produced?

Answer 1

Because as more hats are produced less grapes can be produced.

Opportunity cost is the cost of the next best option forgone when one alternative is chosen over other alternatives.

There are two commodities that can be produced by the country- hats and grapes.

If the country decides to increase production of hats, it has to reduce the quantity of hats that can be produced, therefore the opportunity cost increases.

Step-by-step explanation:

For example, let assume a country can produce 30 grapes and 30 hats. If it decides to increase the amount of hats produced to 40, only 20 grapes can be produced. If it decides to increase to 50 hats only 10 grapes would be produced and if it decides to produce 60 hats, no grapes would be produced.

It can be seen that opportunity cost increases as more hats are produced

I hope my answer helps you