Nobel prize 2009 for economics

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First woman win Nobel Economics Prize

Stockholm, Oct 13: Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to win the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday for research seen as highly topical in the wake of the economic crisis and amid efforts to tackle climate change. Fellow US economist Oliver Williamson shared the 10-million-kronor ($1.42-million) prize with Ms Ostrom, whose name has circulated for years as a possible winner.

Ms Ostrom told Swedish television her first reaction was "great surprise and appreciation" and said she was "in shock" at being the first woman to clinch the honour.Ms Ostrom describes herself as a political scientist instead of an economist and is a professor at Indiana University, where she researches the management of common property or property under common control, such as natural resources.

Her work challenged the notion that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized, the jury said.

"If we want to halt the degradation of our natural environment and prevent a repetition of the many collapses of natural-resource stocks experienced in the past, we should learn from the successes and failures of common-property regimes," it said.

Mr Williamson, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, was honoured with the other half of the prize "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm."

He has studied the existence of large firms and argued that hierarchical organisations represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest.

"According to Williamson's theory, large private corporations exist primarily because they are efficient.... When corporations fail to deliver efficiency gains, their existence will be called in question," the jury said.

Landis Gabel, a senior economics and management professor at top French business school INSEAD and who studied under Prof Williamson in the 1970s, said the choice of Prof Williamson and Ms Ostrom was 'timely'. -AFP