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Last Updated: Jul 31st, 2011 - 17:29:39 |
A Nobel first: economics prize goes to a woman
By Anna Ringstrom and Nicholas Vinocur
Oct 12, 2009, 16:53
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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A U.S. academic who proved that communities can trump state control and corporations became the first woman to win the Nobel prize in economics on Monday, sharing it with an expert on conflict resolution.
Elinor Ostrom defied conventional wisdom with studies that showed that user-managed properties -- such as community fish stocks or woodland areas -- more often than not were better run than standard theories predicted.
"Since we have found that bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information while citizens and users of resources do, we hope it helps encourage a sense of capacity and power," the Indiana University professor told a news conference via telephone.
The previously accepted view was that common property was poorly managed and should be either regulated centrally or privatized.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded her half the 10 million Swedish crown ($1.4 million) prize, with the other half going to Oliver Williamson, who was recognized for his analysis of conflict resolution by firms and markets.
"Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the committee said in a statement.
ANOTHER SURPRISE
After a week of Nobel drama that included the gasp-inducing selection of U.S. President Barack Obama for the peace prize, the economics prize risked being an anti-climax.
But the choice of a woman for a prize in a field dominated by men added a final twist to this year's award, showing again the academy's penchant for springing surprises.
Ostrom said the phone call was unexpected.
"There are many, many people who have struggled mightily and to be chosen for this prize is a great honor and I'm still a little bit in shock," she told the news conference.
Ostrom, a professor in political science, and Williamson had been considered relative long-shots for the prize, quoted at 50/1 by British bookmaker Ladbrokes.
"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," said professor Tore Ellingsen of the academy.
"You have to look back and notice how few women have reached senior professor positions in economics, and also given the prize is awarded for work at least 20 years old," he said.
Professor Leif Lewin of the academy noted it was unusual to grant the prize to a political scientist, but the subject matter made this a popular choice. "I don't think it's controversial in the way many prizes have been before," he said.
The academy said Ostrom and Williamson, of the University of California, Berkeley, helped explain that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.
"Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies," it said, adding that economic theory delved deeply into markets but had sufficiently explored this huge area of activity.
Ostrom, 76, whose work was partly inspired by Williamson, gathered her most important research in a 1990 book called "Governing the Commons: the Evolution for Collective Action."
Williamson, 77, did much of his key work in the 1970s. He showed how hierarchical organizations could thrive because they are effective at resolving conflicts and in some ways were more efficient than market-based systems.
But he also argued that problems could emerge when executive authority was abused, making such systems less productive.
The economics prize, officially called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established in 1968. It is not part of the original group of awards set out in dynamite tycoon Nobel's 1895 will.
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