In economics the term is expressed as opportunity cost, referring to the most preferred alternative given up. A tradeoff, then, involves a sacrifice that must be made to obtain a certain product, service or experience, rather than others that could be made or obtained using the same required resources. For a person going to a basketball game, their opportunity cost is the money and time expended, as compared with the alternative of watching a particular television program at home.
Many factors affect the tradeoff environment within a particular country, including availability of raw materials, a skilled labor force, machinery for producing a product, technology and capital, market rate to produce that product on reasonable time scale, and so forth.