Refer to the accompanying figure. For Pat, the opportunity cost of removing one bag of trash is planting:

A)100 bulbs.
B)5 bulbs.
C)1/100 of a bulb.
D)1/5 of a bulb.

Question

Refer to the accompanying figure. For Pat, the opportunity cost of removing one bag of trash is planting:     
 
A)100 bulbs. 
B)5 bulbs. 
C)1/100 of a bulb. 
D)1/5 of a bulb.

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Pat gives up planting 100 bulbs to remove 20 bags of trash, so the opportunity cost of removing 1 bag of trash is planting 5 (= 100/20)bulbs. More generally, the opportunity cost of producing an additional unit of the good on the horizontal axis is the absolute value of the slope of the PPC.

Refer to the Accompanying Figure