Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson on their Economics Nobel Prize 2009
Those of you who were familiar with me as a graduate student will completely understand why I have the goosebumps right now and I’m almost reduced to tears (of joy, that is). Dr. Elinor Ostrom, the co-founder (along with her incredibly bright and super sweet husband, Vincent Ostrom) of the Workshop on Political Theory and Public Policy at Indiana University, is sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Dr. Oliver Williamson, the most prominent author in the field of transaction cost economics.
Everybody, every-single-body who studies public policy has to go through the work of Williamson and more often than not, the work of Ostrom. In my case, I have two personal connections with Dr. Ostrom (who likes being called Lin). Lin came to Vancouver in 2002 when I was still a graduate student at UBC and visited the graduate college where I used to live. I had an opportunity to share breakfasts and dinners with her and her husband, listen to all the seminars she gave on the governance of the commons and neo-institutional rational choice, and I was even privileged to have them take me for lunch at the cafeteria next door to the Sauder School of Business (99 Chairs).
I will always remember fondly those conversations, as Lin and Vincent gave me lots of advice, from finishing up the PhD thesis, to the academic career, to work-life balance, to using neo-institutional theory in my work. At the time, I hadn’t even thought of working in the field of water governance, but after talking to Lin so enthusiastically and positively about this kind of work, and listening to her praise one of my very dear friends in Mexico who does research in forest governance (and who is also friends with Lin), I thought that I ought it to myself to learn neo-institutionalism. I keep that lunch with Lin and Vincent amongst my fondest memories of graduate school.
I’ve read almost everything Lin has published, and I’ve used much of her and her former PhD students’ work in my own research on water governance. I met some of her PhD students at an institutional analysis workshop in 2005. I am delighted for many, many reasons, but perhaps the one that makes me feel even happier is that, Lin is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics. This has been a good year for women in the Nobel Prizes.
Congratulations Lin! I hope to come visit to Indiana sometime soon.
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It seems that you’re one of the few who’s familiar with Dr. Ostrom’s work.
<a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/what-this-years-nobel-prize-in-economics-says-about-the-nobel-prize-in-economics"economics profession is going to hate the prize going to Ostrom even more than Republicans hated the Peace prize going to Obama.
Luc,
I’m definitely VERY familiar with Ostrom’s work. She’s a political scientist who has managed to bridge economics, policy sciences, psychology, sociology, anthropology. Her work on common pool resource theory has informed my research quite a lot.
The economists may hate that the economics prize goes to a non-economist, but the foundation of her research is neoinstitutional rational choice theory, which is as economics-based as you can get.
Apologies for the botched comment – the link didn’t work. May I suggest to add a ‘Preview’ button, assuming that some html is allowed?