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the winners of the Nobel Economics Prize. The prize attracted special
attention in the wake of the global economic crisis. Elinor Ostrom has
become the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics since it
began in 1968. Ostrom won the prize with fellow American Oliver
Williamson for their separate work in economic governance. The
Economics Prize is the only one of the six Nobel prizes not created
in Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel's 1896 will -- it was created
much later to celebrate the 1968 tricentary of the Swedish central
bank and was first awarded in 1969. Since then, men have swept the
Economics Prize, with no woman clinching the 10- million-kronor (
1.42- million-dollar, 980 ,000- euro) honour which can be shared by
up to three winners. Americans also dominate the list of economics
laureates. Last year, the coveted award went to US economist, New
York Times columnist and fierce George W Bush critic Paul Krugman for
a trade analysis theory that determines the effects of free trade
and globalisation, as well as the driving forces behind worldwide
urbanisation. Earlier, US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace
Prize -- though this aroused some controversy. BBC economics editor
Stephanie Flanders said the judges had rewarded work in areas of
economics whose practitioners' "hands were clean" of involvement in
the global financial crisis. Ostrom, who has devoted her career to
studying the interaction of people and natural resources, told the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences by telephone that she was surprised
by the Nobel. "There are many, many people who have struggled
mightily and to be chosen for this prize is a great honour," she said.
"I'm still a little bit in shock." The academy cited Ostrom "for her
analysis of economic governance," saying her work had demonstrated
how common property can be successfully managed by groups using it.
Williamson, the academy said, developed a theory where business firms
can serve as structures to resolve conflicts. "Over the last three
decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic
governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific
attention," the academy said. It said the American winners' research
shows that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social
organisation. "Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom
that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated
by central authorities or privatised," the academy said. "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." One
notable publication Ostrom wrote in 1990 examined both successful and
unsuccessful ways of governing natural resources - forests,
fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands and irrigation system - that are
used by individuals. Williamson was cited for arguing that markets
and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative
governance structures that differ in their approaches to resolving
conflicts of interest. Issues of governance, or the rules by which
authority is exercised in companies and economies, have been at the
heart of the ongoing world economic crisis. The failure by boards of
directors, for instance, to police excessive compensation, or prevent
bonuses that reward excessive risk taking, can be considered a
corporate governance issue.
