Page "Economics" Paragraph 29

Specialization is considered key to economic efficiency based on theoretical and empirical considerations.

Different individuals or nations may have different real opportunity costs of production, say from differences in stocks of human capital per worker or capital / labour ratios.

According to theory, this may give a comparative advantage in production of goods that make more intensive use of the relatively more abundant, thus relatively cheaper, input.

Even if one region has an absolute advantage as to the ratio of its outputs to inputs in every type of output, it may still specialize in the output in which it has a comparative advantage and thereby gain from trading with a region that lacks any absolute advantage but has a comparative advantage in producing something else.