Reference no: EM133124042

Gains from trade

Consider two neighboring island countries called Felicidad and Arcadia. They each have 4 million labor hours available per week that they can use to produce jeans, rye, or a combination of both. The following table shows the amount of jeans or rye that can be produced using 1 hour of labor.

Initially, suppose Arcadia uses 1 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 3 million hours per week to produce rye, while Felicidad uses 3 million hours of labor per week to produce jeans and 1 million hours per week to produce rye. Consequently, Felicidad produces 24 million pairs of jeans and 32 million bushels of rye, and Arcadia produces 12 million pairs of jeans and 72 million bushels of rye. Assume there are no other countries willing to trade goods, so, in the absence of trade between these two countries, each country consumes the amount of jeans and rye it produces.

Suppose that each country completely specializes in the production of the good in which it has a comparative advantage, producing only that good. In this case, the country that produces jeans will produce ________ million pairs per week, and the country that produces rye will produce ______ million bushels per week.