Elinor Ostrom Has Died: First And Only Woman Awarded Economics Nobel Prize

Elinor Ostrom, awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, died, June 12, 2012.

From "IU community mourns passing of Distinguished Professor and Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom:"

Ostrom, 78, died of cancer at 6:40 a.m. today [June 12, 2012] at IU [Indiana University] Health Bloomington Hospital surrounded by friends. She was senior research director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.***Ostrom shared the 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also known as the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, with University of California economist Oliver Williamson. She was the first woman and remains the only woman to be awarded the prize.***The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences to Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons." Through a multidisciplinary approach that combined theory, field studies and laboratory experiments, she showed that ordinary people are capable of creating rules and institutions that allow for the sustainable and equitable management of shared resources. Her work countered the conventional wisdom that only private ownership or top-down regulation could prevent a "tragedy of the commons," in which users would inevitably destroy the resources that they held in common.***Elinor Ostrom's best known book, "Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action,"examines effective governance systems for common-pool resources, drawing on studies of water management districts, irrigation systems, grazing resources, fisheries, forests and other examples. [Emphasis added.]