Who was absolute advantage in this example?

Question

In 1 hour John can catch either 12 flies or 4 ants. Mike can catch 12 flies or 2 ants. Who has and absolute advantage in catching flies and who in catching ants? Extra: What is John’s opportunity cost to catch a fly and what is to catch an ant? What about Mike? Who has a comparative advantage in catching flies and ants?

Answer 1

Absolute advantage refers to the person who can do the activity best period. In this example Both are tied in fly catching but John has an absolute advantage in catching ants.

The opportunity cost is calculated by reducing each product to one.

For example: If Johns spends all his time catching flies he will catch 12 of them but will not catch any ants. OR he can spend all his time catching 4 ants but will not catch any flies. So for john his opportunity cost for catching 12 flies = 4 ants. or reducing it, he can catch for every 1 fly he catches he gives up catching 4/12 ants or 1/3 ant.  

Going the other way John's opportunity cost for catching 4 ants = 12 flies (then divide both by 4) or 1 ant costs him 12/4 flies or 3 flies.

Mikes opportunity cost of flies is 12 flies to 2 ants or 1 fly to (2/12) 1/6 ant

and the opportunity cost of ants is 2 ants to 12 flies or 1 to 6.

So when looking at comparative advantage, who ever has the smallest opportunity cost for one good should specialize in that good. John's opportunity cost of ants is 3 flies and mikes is 6 flies. so it is relatively cheaper for john to catch ants. And it will always follow that if John has a comparative advantage in one good then Mike must have a comparative advantage in the other good. Let's see. Johns opportunity cost for flies is 1/3 ant.  Mike's opportunity cost for flies is 1/6 ant.  So it is relatively cheaper for mike to catch flies.