Production–possibility frontier in the context of "Graphical representation"

In microeconomic theory, the opportunity cost of a choice is the value of the best alternative forgone where, given limited resources, a choice needs to be made between several mutually exclusive alternatives. Assuming the best choice is made, it is the "cost" incurred by not enjoying the benefit that would have been had if the second best available choice had been taken instead. The New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as "the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen". As a representation of the relationship between scarcity and choice, the objective of opportunity cost is to ensure efficient use of scarce resources. It incorporates all associated costs of a decision, both explicit and implicit. Thus, opportunity costs are not restricted to monetary or financial costs: the real cost of output forgone, lost time, pleasure, or any other benefit that provides utility should also be considered an opportunity cost.

In economics, the market mechanism is a mechanism by which the use of money exchanged by buyers and sellers with an open and understood system of value and time trade-offs in a market tends to optimize distribution of goods and services in at least some ways. The mechanism can exist in free markets or in captive or controlling markets seek to use supply and demand, or some other form of charging for scarcity, to choose among production possibilities. In a free market economy, all the resources are allocated by the private sector (individuals, households, and groups of individuals); in a planned economy, all the resources are owned by the public sector (local and central government); and, in a mixed economy, some resources are owned by both sectors, private and public. In reality the first two are mostly theoretical and the third is common. Resources are allocated according to the forces of supply and demand.

Government interference in the market mechanism can lead to economic inefficiency when it is applied to some private goods. Prices convey a lot of information. They not only tell producers what to produce but also inform the producers to produce what people want. The more inaccurate the information gets, the lesser will be the economic coordination which will in turn lower satisfaction of wants. Thus interference in the information conveyed by prices is destructive to economic development if misapplied or overused. However, the market mechanism often cannot optimize for public goods, owing to problems such as the tragedy of the commons. For example, modern highways have been good for economic development, but it has taken government planning and allocation to bring them into existence.

The Heckscher–Ohlin model (/hɛkʃr ʊˈliːn/, H–O model) is a general equilibrium mathematical model of international trade, developed by Eli Heckscher and Bertil Ohlin at the Stockholm School of Economics. It builds on David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage by predicting patterns of commerce and production based on the resources of a trading region. The model essentially says that countries export the products which use their relatively abundant and cheap factors of production, and import the products which use the countries' relatively scarce factors.