Woman receives Economics Nobel Prize for first time
ELINOR OSTROM yesterday became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics for her work on the use of common resources.
A professor at Indiana University in the US, her work showed that user-managed properties such as woodlands or communal water sources were usually better managed than standard economic theories predicted.
The received wisdom is that common property is poorly managed – the so-called tragedy of the commons – and such resources should be centrally regulated or privatised.
Ostrom, who is a political scientist, shares the 10m Swedish krona (£100,000) prize with the other half going to Berkeley economist Oliver Williamson for his analysis which shed light on conflict resolution by firms and markets.
Professor Tore Ellingsen of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, said: “I hope that it will be inspiring for women researchers that you don’t have to be a male in order to win the economics prize.”