Chapter 19: Q 21. (page 462)
Look at Table 19.9. Is there a range of trades for
which there will be no gains?
Both Mexico and the US have to decide between shoes and refrigerators.
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What is splitting up the value chain?
Review the numbers for Canada and Venezuela from Table 19.12 which describes how many barrels of oil and tons of lumber the workers can produce. Use these numbers to answer the rest of this question.
a. Draw a production possibilities frontier for each country. Assume there are 100 workers in each country. Canadians and Venezuelans desire both oil and lumber. Canadians want at least 2,000 tons of lumber. Mark a point on their production possibilities where they can get at least 3,000 tons.
b. Assume that the Canadians specialize completely because they figured out they have a comparative advantage in lumber. They are
willing to give up 1,000 tons of lumber. How much oil should they ask for in return for this lumber to be as well off as they were with no trade? How much should they ask for if they want to gain from trading with Venezuela? Note: We can think of this “ask” as the relative price or trade price of lumber.
c. Is the Canadian “ask” you identified in (b) also beneficial for Venezuelans? Use the production possibilities frontier graph for Venezuela to show that Venezuelans can gain from trade.
Under what conditions does comparative advantage
lead to gains from trade?
In France it takes one worker to produce one sweater, and one worker to produce one bottle of wine. In Tunisia it takes two workers to produce one sweater, and three workers to produce one bottle of wine. Who has the absolute advantage in production of sweaters? Who has the absolute advantage in the production of wine? How can you tell?
Consider two countries: South Korea and Taiwan. Taiwan can produce one million mobile phones per day at the cost of \(10 per phone and South Korea can produce 50 million mobile phones at \)5 per phone. Assume these phones are the same type and quality and there is only one price. What is the minimum price at which both countries will engage in trade?
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