2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 12 October 2009.

The citation

Half of the prize goes to Elinor Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons". Half of the prize goes to Oliver E. Williamson "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm".

The laureates

Elinor Ostrom was born in 1933 in Los Angeles, the United States, and is affiliated with Indiana University, Bloomington and Arizona State University, Tempe. Oliver E. Williamson was born in 1932 in Superior, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley.

Why it matters

Ostrom showed how communities can manage shared resources such as fisheries and forests without state control or privatisation. She is the first woman to receive the economics prize.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895. Strictly, this award is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was established by the Swedish central bank in 1968, but is presented alongside the Nobel Prizes.