what is the production possibility frontier ppf 
the production possibility frontier ppf is a curve on a graph that illustrates the possible quantities that can be produced of two products if both depend upon the same finite resource for their manufacture the ppf is also referred to as the production possibility curve ppf also plays a crucial role in economics for example it can demonstrate that a nation s economy has reached the highest level of efficiency possible joules garcia investopediaunderstanding the production possibility frontier ppf the ppf is the area on a graph representing production levels that cannot be obtained given the available resources the curve represents optimal levels here are the assumptions involved if a company is deciding how much of each product to produce it can plot points on a graph representing the number of products made using variables based on amounts of available resources considering that resources are limited if the desire is to produce more of one product resources must be taken away from the other as resources are taken from one product and allocated to the other another point can be plotted on the curve when you plot the points where more of x will be produced by taking resources from y or vice versa a curve is generated representing the maximum amount of each product that can be produced as resources are reallocated for example if a nonprofit agency provides a mix of textbooks and computers the curve may show that it can provide either 48 textbooks and six computers or 72 textbooks and two computers this results in a ratio of about six textbooks to one computer the agency s leadership must determine which item is more urgently needed in this example the opportunity cost of providing an additional 30 textbooks equals five more computers so it would only be able to give out one computer with 78 textbooks if it wanted more computers it would need to reduce the number of textbooks by six for every computer 