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elinor ostrom
November 2009 
Nobel Prize in Economics 2009 for Ostrom and Williamson
Posted on Oct 12th, 2009
by 
Albert
Albert
Just announced. Most interesting how economic governance, the organization of ccoperation is the ductus. In other words the challenging mastery of the oscillation of individual and collective forces in economy. Congrats to the Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson!
Nobel Prize in Economics 2009
Press Release
12 October 2009The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2009 to
Elinor Ostrom
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA,
"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
and
Oliver E. Williamson
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA,
"for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"
Economic governance: the organization of cooperation
Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.
Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.
Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.
Oliver Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.
Read more about this year's prizeInformation for the Public (pdf) Scientific Background (pdf)
In order to read the text you need Acrobat Reader. Links and Further Reading
Nobel Prize in Economics 2009
Press Release
12 October 2009The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2009 to
Elinor Ostrom
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA,
"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"
and
Oliver E. Williamson
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA,
"for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"
Economic governance: the organization of cooperation
Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.
Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.
Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.
Oliver Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.
Read more about this year's prizeInformation for the Public (pdf) Scientific Background (pdf)
In order to read the text you need Acrobat Reader. Links and Further Reading
Access: Public
I just received a great notification -behind the scenes of Kosmos Journal - regarding the theme of the commons Elinor Ostrom is dealing with. These are remarkably converging devlopments and showing how the world more and more is seen with new eyes:
“…
We are finally waking up to the dangers of privatization of our natural resources, our creative rights, and even the air we breath. Learn more about a rising Global Commons movement to protect us from the enclosure of many things we have simply taken for granted. In a seminal article, James Quilligan is breaking the field wide open and alerting us to what we must do to protect our freedoms and democracy.on a global scale. After recently addressing the G20 in Pittsburgh, he spent 5 quality weeks writing his seminal article for Kosmos. Often we think that our writers just whip up their material for publication. But when an article breaks new fields and opens up creative possibilities, long periods of time are needed for reflection. James knows this and that is why his articles are never repeats of the old - always groundbreaking on the most important issues of our time.
Then, as if to put an exclamation point to the urgency of protecting the commons, we found out that Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel Prize in Economics for her work on the topic. We just had to include a page in the journal honoring this exciting news - this was literally the day before we went to press!
…”