Just in… Prof Elinor Ostrom has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. Ostrom, from University of Indiana, USA, is the first female Laureate in Economic Sciences and will share the prize with Prof Oliver E. Williamson, from the University of California Berkeley, USA.

Ostrom was praised “for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons.” According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences:

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. [Read more →]