UNU-WIDER Affiliated Economist Awarded Nobel Prize
Professor Ostrom won the prize on Monday with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their separate work on economic governance. Ms Ostrom has been associated with UNU-WIDER for more than a decade.
“The prize committee has underscored the importance of managing environmental constraints and helping poor countries develop. Improving the lives of the poor through our research work is, of course, what UNU-WIDER is all about, and we are indeed delighted that Prof. Ostrom has been associated with that work,” UNU-WIDER’s Deputy Director, Augustin Fosu, said.
Elinor Ostrom was a contributor to UNU-WIDER’s 1999 research project on Land Distribution, Land Reform and Economic Growth (co-directed by Alain DeJanvry and Elisabeth Sadoulet). She also worked with Ravi Kanbur and Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis on the 2004 conference on ‘Unlocking Human Potential’ - dealing with the formal and informal sector, and co-edited the resulting book Linking the Formal and Informal Economy: Concepts and Measures. The book was initially printed by OUP in 2006 and was reprinted by OUP-India in 2007, due to its popularity.
According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Ostrom was awarded the Nobel Prize “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm”. “Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized”, the announcement read.