On the selection of Elinor Ostrom for the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy in 1997, I was invited to the award ceremony to say a few words. A colleague asked me who the recipient was, and I said "Elinor Ostrom." Ostrom pioneered the study of informal, non-governmental institutions that people invent to ration their use of the "commons," even in asymmetrical situations like upstream versus downstream occupants of a river bank. What is known as the "free rider" (non-cooperator) problem has found a number of solutions, voluntarily adopted, in a variety of cultures and environments. Elinor Ostrom "discovered" this subject and revealed it to us with examples ranging from the simple to the sophisticated. The Nobel prizes are intended to honor not lifetime achievement but specific discoveries or inventions. Elinor Ostrom is a perfect example.
It has been remarked that she is the first woman to be awarded the prize in economic sciences. (Several women in other disciplines were awarded Nobels this year.) She is also the first political scientist, symbolizing that you don't need a Ph.D. from an economics department to do work that advances economic "sciences." Daniel Kahneman, who with Amos Tversky (deceased) pioneered what is now called "behavioral economics," is a psychologist at Princeton who received the Nobel recently.
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