The First Three Principles of Economics Applied to the OSU Women’s Gymnastics Team:

Principle 1: People Face Trade Offs

    In gymnastics there are four events: vault, bars, beam and floor.  When competing in the club level below college gymnastics, the gymnast competes every event and their goal is personal success.  If they have a weak event it hurts their combined total score.  Once you get to the college level, the goal is for the team to succeed.  This means that whoever is the strongest on an event will be chosen to put up a score for that event.  In this way, the most efficient at producing a routine on an event will contribute to the total there, while the most efficient at producing a routine on another event will contribute there.  This allows us as a team to be producing at the most efficient point on the production possibilities frontier.

 

Principle 2:  The Cost of Something Is What You Give Up to Get It

     Because training is so critical, an athlete has many opportunity costs.  My training overrules any other commitments I may desire to participate in.  During the twenty hours dedicated to practicing in the gym I am trading off hours that I would use to be studying for economics, writing extra blogs, retaking aplia homework quizzes, writing out all my econ notes again, and reading ahead in our economics book.  Instead of spending quality time at office hours, I must be on a bus traveling to competition sites across the country or making appearances at an assortment of sporting events to promote our next home competition (which everyone who reads this I encourage to come and enjoy an evening of competitive excitement on April 4^th when we will be hosting Regionals right here at home in our very own St. John Arena at 7 PM).

 

Principle 3: Rational People Think at the Margin

     For most athletes, more numbers and repetitions means greater amount of stress put on their body.  At this point of a gymnastics career, there are about 18-20 years of pounding already put in.  The problems that college coaches now face are marginal benefits and costs.  As the number of repetitions increase, the marginal benefit of each product is the increase in the quality of each product.  However, as the numbers increase, the marginal cost is the increase in the amount of wear and tear.  Stress fractures, pulled muscles, and strained ligaments come into the equation.  Thus, the coach must be able to determine the point at which marginal cost equals marginal benefit and operate at a level just below that point.  If they operate at the point where the total cost of pounding is greater than the total revenue created from the increased level of production, the firm (athlete) will not be able to sustain for all their years of eligibility.  The firm will close in the long run.