Answer:
A. How much time would it take the two students to complete the project if they divide the two tasks equally?
- James needs 10 hours to complete half the task and Jane needs 16 hours to do her part = total work 26 hours
B. How much time would it take the two students to complete the project if they use comparative advantage and specialize in calculating or preparing slides?
- If they specialize, then Jane should do the calculations (12 hours) and James should prepare the slides (10 hours) = total work 22 hours
C. If James and Jane have the same opportunity cost of $5 per hour, is there a better solution than for each to specialize in calculating or preparing slides?
- Yes, Jane should pay James so that he does the whole work all by himself. Since James opportunity cost is $5 per hour, his total economic cost of doing the work is $100, and half of that is $50. Jane's economic cost of doing her part is $60 (= 12 x $5), so if she pays any amount lower than $60 and equal or higher than $50 to James, then they would both win.
Explanation:
50 powerpoint slides
James needs 10 hours to do the calculations and 10 hours to prepare the slides = 20 hours total / 2 = 10 hours
Jane needs 12 hours to do the calculations and 20 hours to prepare the slides = 32 hours total / 2 = 16 hours
James's opportunity cost of doing the calculations or preparing the slides is 10 / 10 = 1
Jane's opportunity cost of doing one hour of calculations is 20 / 12 = 1.67 hours of preparing slides.
Jane's opportunity cost of doing one hour of preparing slides is 12 / 20 = 0.6 hours of calculations.
