when this is plotted the area below the curve represents computers and textbooks that are not being used and the area above the curve represents donations that cannot happen with the available resources the area above the curve is called the production possibility frontier and the curve the line itself is sometimes called the opportunity cost curve the entire graph is sometimes referred to as the production possibility curve 
the nonprofit could provide 10 textbooks and 10 computers but this is not using all of its resources this would be represented by a plot beneath the curve a plot would be placed above the curve in the frontier area if the company wanted to give more than its resources provided such as 85 textbooks and no computers or 42 textbooks and 10 computers it simply can t do so based on available resources this technique can be used by economists to determine the set of points at which a country s economy is most efficiently allocating its resources to produce as many goods as possible if the production level is on the curve the country can only produce more of one good if it produces less of some other good if the economy is producing less than the quantities indicated by the curve this signifies that resources are not being used to their full potential in this case it is possible to increase the production of some goods without cutting production in other areas the production possibility frontier demonstrates that there are limits on production given that the assumptions hold therefore each economy must decide what combination of goods and services should be produced to attain maximum resource efficiency production possibility frontier ppf on a national scaleimagine a national economy that can produce only two things wine and cotton if points a b and c are plotted on a curve it represents the economy s most efficient use of resources for instance producing five units of wine and five units of cotton point b is just as attainable as producing three units of wine and seven units of cotton point x represents an inefficient use of resources while point y represents a goal that the economy simply cannot attain with its present levels of resources as we can see for this economy to produce more wine it must give up some of the resources it is currently using to produce cotton point a if the economy starts producing more cotton represented by points b and c it would need to divert resources from making wine and consequently will produce less wine than it is producing at point a moreover by moving production from point a to b the economy must decrease wine production by a small amount compared to the increase in cotton output but if the economy moves from point b to c wine output will be reduced by about 50 while the cotton output only increases by about 75 keep in mind that a b and c all represent the most efficient allocation of resources for the economy the nation must decide how to achieve the ppf and which combination to use for example if more wine is in demand the cost of increasing its output is proportional to the cost of decreasing cotton production markets play an important role in telling the economy what the ppf should look like consider point x in the figure above if a country is producing at point x that means its resources are not being used efficiently in other words the country is not producing enough cotton or wine given the potential of its resources on the other hand point y as we mentioned above represents an unattainable output level an economy can only be produced on the ppf curve in theory economies constantly struggle to reach an optimal production capacity scarcity always forces an economy to forgo some choice in favor of another the only way for the curve to move outward to point y is if there were an improvement in cotton and grape harvesting technology because the available resources land labor and capital generally remain constant as output increased the ppf curve would be pushed outward a new curve represented in the figure on which y would fall would show the new optimal allocation of resources 