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Concept
Production–possibility frontier
Summary
In microeconomics, a production–possibility frontier (PPF), production possibility curve (PPC), or production possibility boundary (PPB) is a graphical representation showing all the possible options of output for two goods that can be produced using all factors of production, where the given resources are fully and efficiently utilized per unit time. A PPF illustrates several economic concepts, such as allocative efficiency, economies of scale, opportunity cost (or marginal rate of transformation), productive efficiency, and scarcity of resources (the fundamental economic problem that all societies face).
This tradeoff is usually considered for an economy, but also applies to each individual, household, and economic organization. One good can only be produced by diverting resources from other goods, and so by producing less of them.
Graphically bounding the production set for fixed input quantities, the PPF curve shows the maximum possible production level of one commodity for any given production level of the other, given the existing state of technology. By doing so, it defines productive efficiency in the context of that production set: a point on the frontier indicates efficient use of the available inputs (such as points B, D and C in the graph), a point beneath the curve (such as A) indicates inefficiency, and a point beyond the curve (such as X) indicates impossibility.
PPFs are normally drawn as bulging upwards or outwards from the origin ("concave" when viewed from the origin), but they can be represented as bulging downward (inwards) or linear (straight), depending on a number of assumptions.
An outward shift of the PPC results from growth of the availability of inputs, such as physical capital or labour, or from technological progress in knowledge of how to transform inputs into outputs. Such a shift reflects, for instance, economic growth of an economy already operating at its full productivity (on the PPF), which means that more of both outputs can now be produced during the specified period of time without sacrificing the output of either good.
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