Compare an Allocation and Its Opportunity Cost
Use supplied constraints and preferences to explain a fictional resource choice.
Supplied materials
- Original fictional exhibit committee has eight volunteer hours for one project; projects cannot be combined or divided. A digitized catalog needs eight hours; a caption revision needs six; a display inventory needs four. Committee’s stated ranking is catalog first, caption second, inventory third. These are imaginary time allocations, with no request to volunteer or spend money.
Learn the idea
An allocation assigns a scarce resource to a use. Identify the limit and feasible alternatives before explaining the choice. All three supplied projects fit eight hours, but the one-project rule prevents combining them. A choice can be consistent with a stated goal while still leaving a valuable alternative undone.
Opportunity cost is the value of the next-best feasible alternative forgone. For this committee’s ranking, choosing the catalog gives up caption revision as the next-best project. The unspent hours under another choice are not themselves a second project when combinations are forbidden. Different rankings or constraints can change the choice without making one group’s preferences universal.
- Build a project-hours table and mark feasibility.
- Apply the one-project constraint.
- Choose the highest-ranked feasible project.
- Name the next-best feasible project given up and explain how changed hours could affect the result.
See the method in action
“All projects fit, so the committee chooses the eight-hour catalog. Caption revision is the next-best feasible alternative it forgoes. Inventory is also forgone, but it is not the next-best alternative under the supplied ranking.”
Check your reasoning
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See the answer and explanation
Caption revision as the next-best feasible project.
The caption project is feasible and ranks second. Feasibility of alternatives does not let the committee complete them all under a one-project rule.
Take it further
Changed limit: five hours, same ranking and one-project rule. Model reasoning: “Catalog and captions no longer fit; inventory is the only listed feasible project. I cannot describe captions as an available alternative under five hours. An additional feasible project would be needed to name a listed next-best alternative.”
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