Solved: A country called Sherwood is very heavily covered with a forest of 50,000 trees

Chapter 12, Problem 13

(choose chapter or problem)

A country called Sherwood is very heavily covered with a forest of 50,000 trees. There are proposals to clear some of Sherwoods forest and grow corn, but obtaining this additional economic output will have an environmental cost from reducing the number of trees. Table 12.11 shows possible combinations of economic output and environmental protection. Combos Corn Bushels (thousands) Number of Trees (thousands) P 9 5 Q 2 30 R 7 20 S 2 40 T 6 10 Table 12.11 a. Sketch a graph of a production possibility frontier with environmental quality on the horizontal axis, measured by the number of trees, and the quantity of economic output, measured in corn, on the vertical axis. b. Which choices display productive efficiency? How can you tell? c. Which choices show allocative efficiency? How can you tell? d. In the choice between T and R, decide which one is better. Why? e. In the choice between T and S, can you say which one is better, and why? f. If you had to guess, which choice would you think is more likely to represent a command-and-control environmental policy and which choice is more likely to represent a market-oriented environmental policy, choice Q or S? Why?