Americans Ostrom, Williamson win Nobel economics

Updated on: Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Stockholm: Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson won the Nobel economics prize today for their work in economic governance.

Ostrom was the first woman to win the prize since it was founded in 1968, and the fifth woman to win a Nobel award this year - a Nobel record.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 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 serve as structures for conflict resolution. '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.

The economics prize was the last Nobel award to be announced this year. It's not one of the original Nobel Prizes, but was created by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel's memory.

Nobel Prize winners receive USD 1.4 million, a gold medal and diploma from the Swedish king on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death in 1896.

Last week, American scientists Elizabeth H Blackburn, Carol W Greider and Jack W Szostak shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering a key mechanism in the genetic operations of cells, an insight that has inspired new lines of research into cancer.

Americans Ostrom, Williamson win Nobel economics

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