Elinor Ostrom: The First Woman to Win the Nobel Prize in Economics

Elinor Ostrom is considered one of the most important women who have made a name for themselves in the field of economics, thanks to her unique mindset and intelligence.

She achieved the remarkable feat of being the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, which she shared equally with economist Oliver Williamson.

This recognition was a tribute to her work on the economic analysis of management, common property, and the sustainable management of natural resources such as forests, oil fields, and land, without government intervention or privatization.

Ostrom was born on August 7, 1933, in the United States. She graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1951, and then studied at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science in 1954. She later received an honorary doctorate from the same university in 1965.

Elinor Ostrom actively engaged in resource management policy and established a research center to attract scholars from various disciplines from around the world.

For many years, Ostrom studied the interaction between people and ecological systems and showed that the use of depleted resources by groups of people (communities, cooperatives, credit unions, labor unions) can be rational and prevent resource depletion without state intervention or market involvement with the private sector.

Elinor Ostrom held several important positions, including being the President of the American Political Science Association and the President of the American Public Choice Society. She was also an active member of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States.

In addition to the Nobel Prize, Ostrom received several prestigious awards. She was the first woman to receive the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science in 1999 and the James Madison Award from the American Political Science Association in 2005.

She also received the William H. Riker Prize in Political Science in 2008, being the first woman in the world to do so. Furthermore, she received the Tisch Research Award from the Jonathan Tisch College at Tufts University.

Ostrom authored several important books, including Institutional Incentives and Sustainable Development, Understanding Institutional Diversity, Cognitive Understanading, and Formal and Informal Economics.

Elinor Ostrom passed away on June 12, 2012, leaving behind a great legacy in the field of economics. Her work is included in the curricula of prestigious universities worldwide, such as Michigan, Oxford, and Cambridge.