To determine the opportunity cost for the United States to produce diamonds in terms of corn, we need to understand how much corn production must be sacrificed to produce a certain number of diamonds.
Given the production capabilities:
- The United States can produce 60 thousand units of corn.
- The United States can produce 10 thousand units of diamonds.
The opportunity cost of producing diamonds is the amount of corn that needs to be given up to produce one unit of diamonds.
To calculate this, we compare the two production quantities:
- The United States needs to give up 60 thousand units of corn to produce 10 thousand units of diamonds.
The opportunity cost of producing one unit (one thousand units) of diamonds is:
[tex]\[ \text{Opportunity cost of 1 thousand units of diamonds} = \frac{60 \text{ thousand units of corn}}{10 \text{ thousand units of diamonds}} \][/tex]
When we perform this calculation, we get:
[tex]\[ \frac{60}{10} = 6 \][/tex]
Therefore, the opportunity cost for the United States to produce diamonds is 6 thousand units of corn.
So, the correct answer is:
6 thousand units of corn
