Absolute advantage: The ability to produce more cheaply.
Comparative advantage: The existence of lower opportunity costs than competitors.
Specialization: The performance of a particular task within an economic system.
Protectionism: The existence of barriers to free-flowing trade.
Explanation:
The four terms that are defined above have to do with trade and the economic theories behind the different trade policies that countries employ. Protectionism is employed when countries want to avoid trade with outside countries and to lower competition with outside countries. Therefore, a country may impose tariffs that make importing goods very expensive. A country will have an absolute advantage in a product if they can make it much cheaper than another country. For example, timber products in Canada will cost less because they have an abundance of forests compared to other countries. A country may have an absolute advantage in one industry but that still may not be its comparative advantage. The country will have to weigh the trading opportunity costs are. Say that one country has no farmland but it has lots of oil. The other country has farmland and oil, but is willing to forgo trading oil in order to trade food for oil with the other country because the opportunity costs for forgoing oil are lower. Now the second country has a comparative advantage in food and the first country has a comparative advantage in oil. David Ricardo believed that comparative advantage would lead to specialization as in countries would specialize in the products they have a comparative advantage in.
