<p>What should happen? It grows. A production possibilty curve shows that the number of goods that can be produced is limited. If there is "more workforce than needed" (supply of work exceeds demand), prices for work descend, due to competition. That means that you can employ more people with the same capital. So if there are enough of the other limiting production factors (such as soil) available, you can produce more of both products.
Of course the product which is more labour-intensive (in the often used example of butter and guns that would probably be the guns) will profit much more from that.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T20:50:10.087Z
Prices, wages, capital returns etc, have nothing to do with the determination of the production possibility frontier. The frontier describes the production _possibilities_ due to existing technology, as a trade-off between the goods that can be produced. And it assumes _full employment of all available production factors_. Issues of excess supply etc does not enter the determination of the frontier, they only influence where we will end up with respect to it.
Alecos Papadopoulos
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T20:59:06.137Z
Yes, that is absolutely correct. It always refers to a given resource-investment. Maybe I articulated myself wrong. What I wanted to say is: That 1: Nothing directly happens to the curve 2: That if there is more workforce than needed the overall production outcome (completely apart from the prodcution possiibility frontier) rises and 3: If you would compare a curve from before the rise of workforce available and after, the more labour-intensive products can be produced with less effort and therefore, if demand is high enough, will be produced more often.
joelsa
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T21:05:15.363Z
I always find a good thing for an answer to expand a little beyond the specific question it answers, but my comment came about because the way you "bundled" the answer to the OP question, with the extensions you decided to include, made the whole thing a bit unclear.
Alecos Papadopoulos
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T20:11:16.877Z
2015-09-12T20:11:16.877Z
joelsa
<p>If too much labor is added to a country's production, what happens to the production possibilities curve? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T18:26:59.707Z
And what is "PPF"? Please take the time to first write down explicitly a concept, and then use an abbreviation for it. Not everybody will understand otherwise.
Alecos Papadopoulos
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T19:19:45.587Z
Define "too much" please. More labor weakly increases PPF in technologies that require labor. But what is too much labor?
FooBar
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-09-12T19:50:15.337Z
This question has the following answer : "The production possibilities frontier expands whenever productive resources are added to the available stock, at whatever quantity". Since this is not very illuminating being essentially a tautology, it follows that the question needs to describe a more specific scenario. Until then I am voting to close.
Alecos Papadopoulos
<microeconomics><economic-growth>
What happens to a production possibilities curve whenever there is too much labor?
Jacob Famvir
# What happens to a production possibilities curve whenever there is too much labor?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-09-12)

If too much labor is added to a country's production, what happens to the production possibilities curve?

**Tags:** microeconomics, economic-growth

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: And what is "PPF"? Please take the time to first write down explicitly a concept, and then use an abbreviation for it. Not everybody will understand otherwise.  
> **username_2**: Define "too much" please. More labor weakly increases PPF in technologies that require labor. But what is too much labor?  
> **username_1**: This question has the following answer : "The production possibilities frontier expands whenever productive resources are added to the available stock, at whatever quantity". Since this is not very illuminating being essentially a tautology, it follows that the question needs to describe a more specific scenario. Until then I am voting to close.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_3 on 2015-09-12. Score: 1

What should happen? It grows. A production possibilty curve shows that the number of goods that can be produced is limited. If there is "more workforce than needed" (supply of work exceeds demand), prices for work descend, due to competition. That means that you can employ more people with the same capital. So if there are enough of the other limiting production factors (such as soil) available, you can produce more of both products.
Of course the product which is more labour-intensive (in the often used example of butter and guns that would probably be the guns) will profit much more from that.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Prices, wages, capital returns etc, have nothing to do with the determination of the production possibility frontier. The frontier describes the production _possibilities_ due to existing technology, as a trade-off between the goods that can be produced. And it assumes _full employment of all available production factors_. Issues of excess supply etc does not enter the determination of the frontier, they only influence where we will end up with respect to it.  
> **username_3**: Yes, that is absolutely correct. It always refers to a given resource-investment. Maybe I articulated myself wrong. What I wanted to say is: That 1: Nothing directly happens to the curve 2: That if there is more workforce than needed the overall production outcome (completely apart from the prodcution possiibility frontier) rises and 3: If you would compare a curve from before the rise of workforce available and after, the more labour-intensive products can be produced with less effort and therefore, if demand is high enough, will be produced more often.  
> **username_1**: I always find a good thing for an answer to expand a little beyond the specific question it answers, but my comment came about because the way you "bundled" the answer to the OP question, with the extensions you decided to include, made the whole thing a bit unclear.  

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