I am drawing a productions possibilities frontier to demonst

I am drawing a productions possibilities frontier to demonstrate the trade off between studying and socializing for college students. While I understand how to go about this, I have a question about the resources being transferred from one activity to the next. Are we supposed to assume that the ressources are equally good in both situations (since it is just the student) and the PPF would be a straight line? Or would the curve bow out, and why if it does?

Solution

In case of resources are equally good in both situation it is straight line and if it is not equal then, it bow out.

For example let us assume that you are equally efficient in study and socialization. Now, if both incurs same cost for an hour then, if you study one hour less and spend that time one hour more in socialization then, you may know one chapter less at the cost of organizing one additional unit of an event(assuming one hour effort yields one additional unit output in both sector). Hence, PPF is straightline.

On the otherhand, for the sake of simplicity suppose that you are more efficient in study than socialization. If you study one hour less and give that time for socialization then, you are foregoing one chapter at the cost of less than organizing an additional unit of the other good. Conversely said if one one additional event is to be organized more by you then, you have to foregoe more and more units of time of studying. By joining outcomes ofall such combinations we can have a bow out curve.