In a certain country it takes five of its 10 workers to produce one barrel of wine but only one worker to produce one yard of cloth. If we graphed this country's PPF (placing wine on the vertical axis and cloth on the horizontal axis), the slope of the PPF would equal -1/5.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The slope of a PPF represents the opportunity cost of one good in terms of the other. In this case, producing one more barrel of wine requires giving up the production of 5 yards of cloth (as it takes 5 workers). Therefore, the slope of the PPF would be negative (since producing more wine requires giving up some cloth) and equal to -1/5 (since the opportunity cost of wine in terms of cloth is 5:1).

In a Certain Country It Takes Five of Its 10