Economics Help: This is an example of an interview question that supposedly has to do with economics...?

in overtime you would have a 50% chance of winning, however you only have a 70% chance of getting to overtime shooting a 2 pointer, meaning by shooting a 2 pointer you would then have a 35% chance of winning

shooting a 3 pointer gives you a 40% chance of winning, and is the best option

i have no idea at all what that has to do with economics, sounds like a math % question to me

Economics applies any time man is faced with a choice about how best to use scarce resources to satisfy his wants. A resource is scarce when it can't be used for all the different possible competing uses of it. To economise means we have to sacrifice one option for the sake of another. The rational question becomes which means are best adopted to achieve a given end.

In your example, the scarce resource is time. The coach has to figure out the most economical way of using it.

That's what the problem has to do with economics. The probability statistics present a mathematical problem to be solved by calculation.

Now a sensible person might conclude that the whole thing is not a sensible question, because

a) the coach wouldn't have time to do the maths, and

b) the probabilities are in fact not known and not knowable, and

c) the mathematical approach disregards contingent variables e.g. the "chance" of one side winning cannot be reduced to mere positive data - "an equal chance" - because they include *subjective* variables (e.g. players' motivations etc.)

d) the answer depends on strategic considerations, i.e. value judgments, which the probability statistics cannot prove or disprove.

However such criticisms are not criticisms of economics per se, but only of the invalid application of maths to economics. It's not junk mathematics. It's junk economics. Unfortunately a lot of mainstream economics is junk economics! Try reading the below book to get a better handle on it.