Microeconomics › Section B · Choice in a world of scarcity › Topic B.2

The production possibilities frontier

A budget constraint limits one person's purchases; a production possibilities frontier limits a whole society's output. The same ideas return - efficiency, trade-offs, opportunity cost - but with a new twist: as production shifts toward one good, that good becomes increasingly costly, and the frontier bends outward.

In this topic

  • Society's version of a budget constraint
  • Reading the frontier
  • Worked example: a village's grain and timber
  • Why the frontier bows out
  • Frontier versus budget constraint
  • Worked example: the straight-line case
  • Productive and allocative efficiency
  • Growth: shifting the frontier
  • A first look at comparative advantage
  • Common mistakes to avoid
  • Key takeaways

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