Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson were awarded the 2009 Sveriges Riksbank Prizein Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel this morning for their work on “economic governance” in the commons and the firm, respectively. Their work is important insofar as it pioneered analysis of economic governance and institutional arrangements outside of competitive market settings. Also of note, Ostrom is the first woman to receive the prize. WSJ coverage is here. Congratulations to both.
UPDATE: More from Alex Tabarrok.
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Ostrom and Williamson Win Economics Nobel « acc3ss.info says:
[...] The rest is here: Ostrom and Williamson Win Economics Nobel [...]
“Economics Nobel Goes To Elinor Ostrom And Oliver E. Williamson” and related posts « Composition4u.info Blogs says:
[...] Ostrom and Williamson Win Economics Nobel - The Volokh Conspiracy [...]
Martinned says:
Halleluja! Now my life finally means something! (My dissertation is to a large extent about Oliver Williamson’s TCE, and I was starting to wonder whether anyone would care by the time I finished...)
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October 12, 2009, 9:28 amWilliam Sjostrom says:
Ostrom, whose work is very good, deserves recognition, but ought not to have been the first woman to get the award, which should have gone long ago to Joan Robinson. Okay, so she was a nut who worshiped Mao, but one can be a first rate economic theorist and a nut at the same time. Where would economists be without the Economics of Imperfect Competition?
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October 12, 2009, 10:56 aminsurance says:
This is a total rip off! Everyone knows that Obama should have won the Nobel in Economic Science. Obviously the Nobel committee did not realize that Obama should win in every category. He has been just as successful in economics as he has in peace…I wonder is racism is involved?
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October 12, 2009, 12:36 pmMartinned says:
Well, technically he has spent quite a bit of time so far trying to sort out the economy. What he has done for peace so far, I’m not entirely sure.
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October 12, 2009, 12:57 pmArthurKirkland says:
What he has done for peace so far, I’m not entirely sure.
I wouldn’t have awarded a Nobel Prize for it, but Obama has avoided attacking the wrong country, has refrained from torturing prisoners, has not paid sketchy bounties to sketchy people for prisoners to be held in endless detention, and generally has constituted a welcome signal to the world that the United States will no longer shoot indiscriminately first and ignore the relevant questions later. He does not appear to mistake Castro for the most important threat to world peace, has defused legitimate concerns that the United States would attack Iran, and appears to be devoting sensible thought to the problem of how to address the nightmare generated by eight years of drift in Afghanistan. I believe it is wrong to underestimate the benefits associated with dispelling the world’s understandable sense that the United States had become a misguided lone wolf, although the credit is deserved by the American electorate at least as much as by the man it elected to resolve the “Mission Accomplished” problem.
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October 12, 2009, 1:31 pmMartinned says:
@ArthurKirkland: That sounds more like a list of things he hasn’t done. I haven’t done any of those things, either. Can I get a Nobel Prize, too?
Back on topic: Why don’t law people care about a law & economics Nobel Prize?
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October 12, 2009, 1:44 pmTim says:
I hate to break it to you guys, but it’s not a Nobel Prize. You compare it to Obama, yet it’s not the same.
Yglesias: “… Oliver Williamson and Elinor Ostrom share the Swedish Central Bank Prize for Economics in Honor of Alfred Nobel. Alex Tabarrok explains Ostrom’s work and Paul Krugman tells you about Williamson. Osrtom is the first woman to win the prize and is also noteworthy for being a political scientist rather than an economist. Robert Shiller tells The New York Times that this is “part of the merging of the social sciences.”
Meanwhile, I would note that the Sveriges Riksbank itself deserves some kind of prize for ability to get people to call its economics prize “the Nobel Prize.” Real Nobel Prizes are prizes awarded according to the endowment that Alfred Nobel set up. There are, of course, lots of other prizes in the world set up by other people. One such prize is this economics prize that the Swedish Central Bank decided to give out. But only the Swedish Central Bank prize has succeeded in convincing people that it should be referred to as a “Nobel Prize” despite having no connection to Alfred Nobel or his prizes. Impressive work and yet another example of the impressively high-performing public sector institutions that make the Swedish social model work.”
So, the committee who gave this award, did not give an award to Obama.
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October 12, 2009, 1:49 pmMartinned says:
@Tim: I hate to break it to you, but each Nobel has its own committee. The one that gave the prize to Obama was from Norway, appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. All the others, including the Economics prize, are from Sweden. Does that mean the Peace Prize doesn’t count?
The Economics Nobel has a similar position in the field of economics that the hard science Nobels have in their field: Generally, there is very little doubt that the person that got it should have gotten it. (Williamson was already on everybody’s short list since the early 90s, at least.) Also, there is no doubt that it is the most prestigious award out there. With those two ingredients, and given that the prize is in honour of Alfred Nobel, I don’t see why we shouldn’t call it “Nobel Prize” like the others.
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October 12, 2009, 1:53 pmNowMDJD says:
He should have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Look at the chemistry he had with the American electorate.
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October 12, 2009, 1:55 pm“Nobel Prize Goes to Ostrom and Williamson” and related posts « Composition4u.info Blogs says:
[...] Ostrom and Williamson Win Economics Nobel - The Volokh Conspiracy [...]
Visitor Again says:
In fairness, Martinned, Obama was in a position to do this things and did not. You, on the other hand, were not–unless things I do not know about are going on in the Netherlands.
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October 12, 2009, 3:50 pmguy in the veal calf office says:
Congratulations on getting the name right. There is no Nobel prize for economics, the national bank created a prize in Alfred Nobel’s name and underwrite its prize money.
Some of Nobel’s descendents have tried to have his nmae removed from the prize because, they say, Nobel was uninterested to contemptuous of social sciences.
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October 12, 2009, 5:39 pm“Ostrom and Williamson Win Economics Nobel” and related posts - KuASha Organization says:
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