The FINANCIAL — Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson of the U.S. won the Nobel Economics Prize for research on ethical corporate governance and natural resource management. Professor Ostrom is the first woman to win the prize since it was founded in 1968.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by groups using it, according to AP.
"Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the academy said, the same source reported. The economics prize was the last Nobel award to be announced this year.
Ostrom, an Indiana University Professor born in 1933, has sought to identify the political, legal and economic rules that either prevent or facilitate efficient and sustainable resource utilization, Bloomberg informs. “This confirms the link between the economy and the environment,” said Susanne Sweet, Associate Professor of marketing and strategy, Stockholm School of Economics. “Plus she’s the first woman to get the prize. It’s very exciting.”
Ostrom, the holder of the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science, got her doctor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1965, according to the same source. She then moved on to the Department of Government at Indiana University, following her husband Vincent. She joined the ranks of professors of political science in 1974 and held the presidency of the American Political Science Association in 1996 and 1997.
Williamson, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, has studied the existence of large firms and argued that hierarchical organisations represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest, AFP reported.
"According to Williamson's theory, large private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient … When corporations fail to deliver efficiency gains, their existence will be called in question," the Nobel committee said, the same source informs.
The economics prize was established in 1969 by the Swedish central bank in honor of Alfred Nobel, who invented dynamite, and established the awards for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature in his will in 1896, according to The New York Times. The winners will share 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million), and each receive a gold medal and diploma from the Swedish king on Dec. 10, which is the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.
The same source wrote that last year’s winner was Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton and an Op-Ed page columnist for The New York Times. Krugman won the prize for his research, beginning in 1979, that explained patterns of trade among countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why.
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