First Woman Wins Economics Nobel Prize

[Talkahuano]

Didn't see this on the front page, but plz merge if it's been posted. :O

Ok! Fun time :)

Two people got the award this year, a man and a woman. Of course, the media is focusing on the woman.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
(CNN) -- Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won the Nobel Prize for economics for work on how community institutions can prevent conflict, the Nobel Committee announced Monday. Ostrom becomes the first woman to win the prize in its 40-year history.

The award was a "great surprise... I'm still a little bit in shock," she said by phone at the news conference announcing the prize.

Ostrom, a professor of political science at Indiana University, was praised "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons."

Ostrom's work shows that local communities often manage common resources -- such as woods, lakes and fish stocks -- better on their own than when outside authorities impose rules, the committee said.

"Bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information, while citizens and users of resources do," she said to explain the significance of her work.

The committee highlighted her research on a dam in Nepal as an example, saying her research has moved analysis of nonmarket institutions "from the fringe of economic analysis to the very center."

Ostrom said she had not yet thought about what she would do with her half of the $1.4 million prize.

Williamson, a professor in the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, was cited "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm."

Williamson's work examines why large corporations tend to arise -- and why they do not -- based on the cost and complexity of transactions, according to the Nobel committee.

"He has taught us to regard markets, firms, associations, agencies and even households from the perspective of their contribution to the resolution of conflict," the panel said.

Forbes magazine said, "He authored 'The Economic Institutions of Capitalism' in 1975, a landmark text of the 'new institutional economics' movement that challenged the idea of firms as simple profit-making machines. He focused on the contracts and transactions that could explain the structure and boundaries of companies."

I think her research sounds a lot more obvious than the guy's work, but it's pretty cool stuff nonetheless.
Thoughts?

[Causa Mortis]

Not to demean her work, but I do not think it would have won a nobel prize if put forward by a man. There is some very noteworthy macro that's been produced in response to the recent crisis, and there are a half a dozen overdue awards.

The quoted reference below is not exactly new work in economics:

"Bureaucrats sometimes do not have the correct information, while citizens and users of resources do," she said to explain the significance of her work.

That said, I'm happy for her.

[TigerL]

I think her research sounds a lot more obvious than the guy's work, but it's pretty cool stuff nonetheless.
Thoughts?

I don't know much about her work but the question I would have is when did she come up with her ideas. Point being, many Nobel prizes are awarded years and often decades after the original work was first done. These original ideas influence so many people and institutions that they seem "obvious" years later when in fact no one had looked at it in that way at the time of the original work.

Also my beef with academic research when I was involved in it touches partly on her point of view. The ivory tower is called that because much research is put forth (definitely in medicine) that has little relevance for your out-in-practice clinician. Some medical researchers have tried to ameliorate this by establishing clinic-based research networks where questions flow up from practicing physicians rather than being dictated by mostly research-oriented physicians.

Similarly, her work sounds like it involves a bottom-up boots-on-the-ground approach rather than a top-down authority-based approach.