First woman wins economics Nobel

[demoleft]

Source: bbc

Elinor Ostrom has become the first woman to win the Nobel prize for econoiics, since it began in 1969.

Ms Ostrom won the prize with fellow American Oliver Williamson for the pair's work on the organisation of co-operation in economic governance.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year.

Easily the most high-profile was US President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8302662.stm

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great news. congratulations, ms ostrom.

[ejbr]

1. Brava! n/t

[Blasphemer]

2. Congratulations to Ms. Ostrom! nt

[HamdenRice]

3. Ostrom's theories support progressive development theories also

I wrote this in another thread explaining what she and Williamson won for:

They're both very, very influential and their win reflects a continued move to the left by the Nobel economics committee.

The Nobel Prize for decades was just University of Chicago right wing free marketeers congratulating each other.

About 10 years ago, things began to shift when Amartya Sen won for his work on poverty and famines. Krugman's win also reflects the move to the left.

There has been a shift from micro economics (how firms and individuals act, formulas for manipulating stocks) to macro economics (how the government can improve the welfare of the population and manage its taxes and spending).

Ostrom is very important in an esoteric way for the left. Before her, there were these economic models out there that said that all resources should be owned as private property because only individual owners and corporations could manage them without a "tragedy of the commons" outcome. According to the people before Ostrom, the idea was there should be no village owned property in the third world, no government owned utilities, and so on. Those economists' work was the justification behind the massive privatizations that took place in the 80s and 90s, especially in the third world.

Ostrom is really more of a "game theorist" than an orthodox economist. She showed using pretty difficult game theory math (mostly some form of "prisoners' dilemma") that when resources are managed by groups, like cooperatives, villages, governments and so on, if there was "repeat play" in decisions, then they could manage just as well as private owners. "Repeat play" in cooperatives and collectives cause the "tragedy of the commons" to be much more limited or to disappear. That's a really simplified explanation of what she said, but it basically justifies a roll back of the Thatcherite/Reaganite privatization mania.

Williamson is kind of the flip side of Ostrom. If the privatizers said that only individuals and corporations should own everything, Williamson showed that corporations are often somewhat irrational owners. He was part of a tradition iirc to model corporations not as a single entity but as a "place" where competing groups bargained for money and power over resources. A corporation wasn't in his view a single thing, but a place where managers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, customers and other "stakeholders" carried out transactions better than if they were doing one off deals. Corporations are places where these relationships become stable and transaction costs are reduced.

[Shanti Mama]

4. I was just listening to the BBC driving home and they simplified it by saying

That she was the first to win for work outside the context of THE MARKET. She won for proving (?) that resources such as fish in public water can be managed properly by users groups. Here in Nepal this was proven more than a decade ago when portions of forest were handed over to Community Forest Users Groups. The health of these forests increased dramatically over those managed by the central government. Too bad one of these CFUGs wasn't awarded the prize money.

[HamdenRice]

5. Yes, that's where her impact is

and it's possible that the advisers that came up with the plan to hand the forest over to Community Forest Users Groups were explicitly relying on her theories, which are very influential.

When they report that she "proved" it, they mean in a mathematical sense (although she also did empirical work and looked at the real world).

She would do these weird decision boxes, that would grow more and more complex with repeat play. The idea was that economists before her used decision boxes that showed that each member of a group, like the CFUG, would maximize his well being by "cheating" and destroying the project. Ostrom would run repeat decision boxes and show that if the person had to make the decision several times, and other people could also make decisions, the individual would maximize his well being by not cheating and by cooperating. So in addition to her real world observations, she did these mathematical proofs that cooperation was better than all out competition.

Thanks for your observations from Nepal! It must be really interesting there. I had a friend a few years ago who spent a lot of time there on development projects.

[Shanti Mama]

9. Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, it is very interesting. I used to run an software outsourcing business, creating jobs for underprivileged Nepalis. Wasn't too popular here on DU. Having lived here for 11 years I tend to see us all as one community, not the US versus India or Nepal or China. But I do understand that view, also.

It's interesting to think that the idea to shift to community management may have been grounded in research. My guess is that the idea was also arrived at independently by villagers talking with development workers. It's an obvious conclusion when one lives in a more cooperative environment.

[joeycola]

6. This too is an historic occasion-(to have a woman win in economics)..

[HamdenRice]

7. I hope this doesn't sound sexist or like I'm stereotyping women, but ...

I find it interesting that the greatest women in development economics, like Ostrom and Esther Boserup, have a distinctly feminist take on things -- especially showing that cooperation often works better than all out capitalist competition.

[joeycola]

16. not sexist at all IMHO:-)

[whoneedstickets]

20. Yes, and consequently they are ostracized from Econ departments....

..and find their homes in interdisciplinary poli-sci and public policy centers.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. This is absolutely wonderful news.

"Tragedy of the Commons" logic was always obiously flawed, but has been used as the justification for rape & pillage in the part of private interests for decades. I think this constitutes more evidence for a sea change in the consciousness of the world, and it is exactly the kind of change we need to make if we are to survive. It is, fundamentally, a recognition that we're all in this together.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Cool! Quite a falopian forest of Nobel winners this year. nt

[LeftishBrit]

11. Good news...

and also that it hasn't gone to yet another Friedmanite free-marketeer!

Perhaps the limitations of the ultra-monetarist approach have become all too sadly obvious by now.

[cal04]

12. Two Americans with California ties win the Nobel in economics

Elinor Ostrom, originally of Los Angeles, and UC Berkeley professor Oliver Williamson share the award for outside-the-box research on the outside-the-market economy.

Two Americans have won the Nobel Prize in economic sciences today for their research in the way economic decisions and transactions are made outside of the market.

Elinor Ostrom, a Los Angeles native who teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., became the first woman to win the prize for economics since it was established 40 years ago.

(snip)
Ostrom, who received a PhD in political science from UCLA in 1965, was recognized for her research demonstrating how common property, particularly natural resources such as pastures, woods and lakes, can be successfully managed by user associations and other forms of institutional arrangements. She "has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized," said the Nobel economics committee.

(snip)
Williamson, who was born in Superior, Wis., and received a PhD in economics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1963, "proposed a theory to clarify why some transactions take place inside firms and not in markets." The committee said his research offered insights into conflict resolutions at businesses and other organizations.

He "has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest," the Nobel panel said. "The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused."


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nobel-economics13-2009oct13,0,1648885.story

[Arkana]

13. Well, I for one don't believe she deserved it.

:evilgrin:

I kid, I kid. Congratulations to her.

[midnight]

14. Great news... Now can we look back to the last winner?

This is what he told our new President:For the past half century the Federal Reserve — a more or less independent institution, run by technocrats and deliberately designed to be independent of whoever happens to occupy the White House — has been taking care of day-to-day, and even year-to-year, economic management. Your fellow presidents were just along for the ride.

So as I said, the Fed has lost its mojo. Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are trying everything they can think of to unfreeze the credit markets — the alphabet soup of new "lending facilities," with acronyms nobody can remember, is growing by the hour. Any day now, the joke goes, everyone will have a Visa card bearing the Fed logo. But at best, all this activity only serves to limit the damage. There's no realistic prospect that the Fed can pull the economy out of its nose dive.

So it's up to you.

The Bush administration may have refused to attach any strings to the aid it has provided to financial firms, but you can change all that. If banks need federal funds to survive, provide them — but demand that the banks do their part by lending those funds out to the rest of the economy. Provide more help to homeowners. Use Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the home-lending agencies, to pass the government's low borrowing costs on to qualified home buyers. (Fannie and Freddie were seized by federal regulators in September, but the Bush administration, bizarrely, has kept their borrowing costs high by refusing to declare that their bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the taxpayer.)http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/25456948/what_obama_must_do/print

[BOG PERSON]

15. Too bad it's not a real Nobel

"The economics prize was... created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory."

:shrug:

[Dover]

17. US duo shares Nobel Prize for Economics (FIRST woman - find out why)

Source: DW-World De.

US researcher Elinor Ostrom is the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics since it was created in 1968. She will share the prestigious award with US compatriot Oliver Williamson.

The jury from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the Americans' research had shown how "economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization."

Ostrom, a professor at Indiana University, was honored for her "analysis of economic governance," especially in relation to the management of common property or property under common control.

The political scientist's work challenges the widely accepted belief that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized, it added.

She carried out numerous studies showing how self-organization and local-level management work to keep common resources viable. Her studies included both natural resources, such as forests, and artificial structures, for example police forces. ...cont'd


Read more: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4784538,00.html

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The 'system' that Ostrom has studied and brought to light is part of a much larger systemic shift toward whole systems, localism/community as an important foundation and microcosm of globalism, self-organization, open-source environments and participatory democracy that is being played out at every level of society as it relates to infrastuture; economic, cultural, etc.. And it is no coincidence that a woman (women) is seen as spearheading these paradigm shifts. In this sense, the Nobel prizes are a signal of the inherent potential being stirred within the crucible of change.



More about Elinor Astrom here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elinor_Ostrom

In particular, Ostrom's work emphasizes how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Common pool resources include many forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems. Ostrom's work has considered how societies have developed diverse institutional arrangements for managing natural resources and avoided ecosystem collapse in many cases, even though some arrangements have failed to prevent resource exhaustion. Her current work emphasizes the multifaceted nature of human–ecosystem interaction and argues against any singular "panacea" attempt to solve individual social-ecological system problems.

[ProudDad]

22. Moved to end

Misplaced...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

18. Is Elinor Ostrom related to Vincent Ostrom?

Also a political scientist who did some work on the economics of water back before anybody else was doing it? Maybe back in the seventies?

Oh, and OP? That's Dr. Ostrom.

[whoneedstickets]

19. yes husband and wife...

..I know several of their students and have met them both. Great, great people.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. Neat.

Now I've got a Nobel winner in the family by marriage.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. Congratulations Michelle Obama!

Oh ... first *woman* ... I was thinking first *lady*. :blush:

[ProudDad]

23. The "economics" prize is NOT a true Nobel

It's a bullshit add-on for the dismal science...

Which is nothing more than a made up excuse to perpetuate the greatest evil on Earth, Capitalism...

and it shouldn't be "awarded" at all...

It's like awarding a "Nobel" prize for the best serial killer of the year...