Elinor Ostrom#Ostrom's law

{{Infobox economist

| name = Elinor Ostrom

| school_tradition = New institutional economics
Bloomington school

| image = Nobel Prize 2009-Press Conference KVA-30.jpg

| caption = Ostrom in 2009

| birth_name = Elinor Claire Awan

| birth_date = {{birth date|1933|8|7|mf=yes}}

| birth_place = Los Angeles, California, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|2012|6|12|1933|8|7|mf=yes}}

| death_place = Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.

| field = {{unbulleted list |Public economics | Common-pool resource | Public choice theory}}

| doctoral_advisor = Dwaine Marvick

| doctoral_students=

| contributions = {{unbulleted list | Institutional Analysis and Development framework | Governing the Commons}}

| awards = {{unbulleted list |{{small|2009}} Nobel Memorial Prize | {{small|2004}} John J. Carty Award | {{longitem|{{small|2001}} US National Academy of Sciences electee}} |{{longitem|{{small|1999}} Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science}} }}

| institution = {{unbulleted list |Indiana University Bloomington | Arizona State University | Virginia Tech | UCLA}}

| spouses = Charles Scott
{{longitem|Vincent Ostrom {{small|(1963–2012; her death)}}}}

| repec_prefix = e

| repec_id = pos55

|education=University of California, Los Angeles (BA, PhD)

}}

Elinor Claire "Lin" Ostrom (née Awan; August 7, 1933 – June 12, 2012) was an American political scientist and political economist{{cite news |title=No Panaceas! Elinor Ostrom talks with Fran Korten |date=March 18, 2010 |url=http://shareable.net/blog/no-panaceas-a-qa-with-elinor-ostrom |newspaper=Shareable: Civic System |access-date=February 20, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110216033008/http://www.shareable.net/blog/no-panaceas-a-qa-with-elinor-ostrom |archive-date=February 16, 2011 |url-status=dead }}{{Cite journal |last1=Janssen |first1=M. A. |title=Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) |doi=10.1038/487172a |journal=Nature |volume=487 |issue=7406 |page=172 |year=2012 |pmid=22785305 |bibcode=2012Natur.487..172J |doi-access=free }}{{Cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=R. K. |title=Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) |doi=10.1126/science.1227725 |journal=Science |volume=337 |issue=6095 |pages=661 |year=2012 |pmid=22879496 |bibcode=2012Sci...337..661W |s2cid=206544072 }} whose work was associated with New Institutional Economics and the resurgence of political economy.{{cite book |author1-last=Aligica |author1-first=Paul Dragos |author2-last=Boettke |author2-first=Peter |year=2010 |chapter=Ostrom, Elinor |title=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics |edition=Online |chapter-url=http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.com/article?id=pde2010_O000109|title-link=The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics }} In 2009, she was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for her "analysis of economic governance, especially the commons", which she shared with Oliver E. Williamson; she was the first woman to win the prize.{{cite web |url=http://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/lists/nobel-prize-awarded-women/ |title=Nobel Prize Awarded Women |access-date=14 October 2019 }}

Trained in political science at UCLA, Ostrom was a faculty member at Indiana University Bloomington for 47 years. Beginning in the 1960s, Ostrom was involved in resource management policy and created a research center, the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, which attracted scientists from different disciplines from around the world. Working and teaching at her center was created on the principle of a workshop, rather than a university with lectures and a strict hierarchy. Late in her career, she held an affiliation with Arizona State University.

Ostrom studied the interaction of people and ecosystems for many years and showed that the use of exhaustible resources by groups of people (communities, cooperatives, trusts, trade unions) can be rational and prevent depletion of the resource without either state intervention or markets with private property.{{cite book |title=Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |year=1990 |pages=1–3 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-40599-7}}

Early life and education

Elinor Claire Awan was born in Los Angeles, California as the only child of Leah Hopkins, a musician, and Adrian Awan, a set designer.{{cite news |last=Leonard |first=Mike |title=Nobel winner Elinor Ostrom is a gregarious teacher who loves to solve problems |date=6 December 2009 |newspaper=The Herald-Times |location=Bloomington, Indiana |url=http://ww.heraldtimesonline.com//stories/2009/12/06/news.qp-7916285.sto?code=d9341e1a-e395-11e4-a7e0-10604b9f2f2e |access-date=15 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150415173651/http://ww.heraldtimesonline.com//stories/2009/12/06/news.qp-7916285.sto?code=d9341e1a-e395-11e4-a7e0-10604b9f2f2e |archive-date=April 15, 2015}}{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9329881/Elinor-Ostrom.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/9329881/Elinor-Ostrom.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Elinor Ostrom |newspaper=The Telegraph |date=13 June 2012 |access-date=15 April 2015 |location=London}}{{cbignore}} Her parents separated early in her life, and Elinor lived with her mother most of the time.{{cite book |last=Wall |first=Derek |author-link=Derek Wall |title=The Sustainable Economics of Elinor Ostrom: Commons, Contestation and Craft |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge}} She attended a Protestant church with her mother and often spent weekends with her father's Jewish family.{{cite news |title=The story of non-economist Elinor Ostrom |date=December 9, 2009 |url=http://www.swedishwire.com/business/1985-the-story-of-non-economist-elinor-ostrom |newspaper=The Swedish Wire |access-date=June 12, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091214213925/http://www.swedishwire.com/business/1985-the-story-of-non-economist-elinor-ostrom |archive-date=December 14, 2009 |url-status=dead }} Growing up in the post-Depression era to divorced artisans, Ostrom described herself as a "poor kid."{{cite news |title=Elinor Ostrom |url=https://www.economist.com/node/21557717 |newspaper=The Economist |date=30 June 2012 |access-date=30 August 2012}} Her major recreational activity was swimming, where she eventually joined a swimming team and swam competitively until she started teaching swimming to earn funds to help put herself through college.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/laureates/2009/ostrom-bio.html|title=Elinor Ostrom – Biographical|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=2018-03-03}}

Ostrom grew up across the street from Beverly Hills High School, which she attended, graduating in 1951.{{Cite book|title=Elinor Ostrom : an intellectual biography|last=Vlad|first=Tarko|year=2017|isbn=978-1-78348-588-8|location=London|oclc=965120114}} She regarded this as fortunate, for the school had a very high rate of college admission. During Ostrom's junior year, she was encouraged to join the debate team. Learning debate tactics had an important impact on her ways of thinking. It allowed her to realize there are two sides to public policy and it is imperative to have quality arguments for both sides. As a high school student, Elinor Ostrom had been discouraged from studying trigonometry, as girls without top marks in algebra and geometry were not allowed to take the subject. No one in her immediate family had any college experience, but seeing that 90% of students in her high school attended college, she saw it as the "normal" thing to do. Her mother did not wish for her to attend college, seeing no reason for it.

She attended UCLA, receiving a B.A. with honors in political science at UCLA in 1954.{{cite book |author1-last=McKay |author1-first=Bonnie J. |author2-last=Bennett |author2-first=Joan |title=Biographical Memoir of Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012) |date=2014 |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/ostrom-elinor.pdf |access-date=15 April 2015}} By attending multiple summer sessions and extra classes throughout semesters, she was able to graduate in three years. She worked at the library, dime store and bookstore in order to pay her fees which were $50 per semester. After graduation, she had trouble finding a job because employers presumed that she was only looking for jobs as a teacher or secretary. She began a job as an export clerk after taking a correspondence course for shorthand, which she later found to be helpful when taking notes in face-to-face interviews on research projects. After a year, she obtained a position as assistant personnel manager in a business firm that had never before hired a woman in anything but a secretarial position. This job inspired her to think about attending graduate-level courses and eventually applying for a research assistantship and admission to a Ph.D. program.

Lacking any math from her undergraduate education and trigonometry from high school, she was consequently rejected for an economics Ph.D. program at UCLA.Elinor Ostrom. https://www.ubs.com/microsites/nobel-perspectives/en/laureates/elinor-ostrom.html in UBS Nobel Perspectives interview, 2009. She was admitted to UCLA's graduate program in political science, where she was awarded an M.A. in 1962 and a Ph.D. in 1965. The teams of graduate students she was involved with were analyzing the political economic effects of a group of groundwater basins in Southern California. Specifically, Ostrom was assigned to look at the West Basin. She found it is very difficult to manage a common-pool resource when it is used between individuals. The locals were pumping too much groundwater and salt water seeped into the basin. Ostrom was impressed with how people from conflicting and overlapping jurisdictions who depended on that source found incentives to settle contradictions and solve the problem. She made the study of this collaboration the topic of her dissertation, laying the foundation for the study of "shared resources".

Career

Ostrom was informed by fieldwork, both her own and that of others. During her PhD at the University of California, Los Angeles, she spent years studying the water wars and pumping races going on in the 1950s in her own dry backyard. In contrast to the prevailing rational-economic predictions of Malthusianism and the tragedy of the commons, she showed cases where humans were not trapped and helpless amid diminishing supplies. In her book Governing the Commons, she draws on studies of irrigation systems in Spain and Nepal, mountain villages in Switzerland and Japan, and fisheries in Maine and Indonesia.{{Cite news |date=2012-06-30 |title=Elinor Ostrom |language=en |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/node/21557717 |access-date=2018-03-03}}

In 1961, Vincent Ostrom, Charles Tiebout, and Robert Warren published "The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas," which would go on to be an influential article and introduced themes that would be central to the Ostroms' work.{{Cite journal|last=Ostrom|first=Elinor|date=2010|title=A Long Polycentric Journey|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|language=en|volume=13|issue=1|pages=1–23|doi=10.1146/annurev.polisci.090808.123259|issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free}} However, the article aggravated a conflict with UCLA's Bureau of Governmental Research because, counter to the Bureau's interests, it advised against centralization of metropolitan areas in favor of polycentrism. This conflict prompted the Ostroms to leave UCLA. They moved to Bloomington, Indiana, in 1965, when Vincent accepted a political science professorship at Indiana University.{{cite news |last=Woo |first=Elaine |title=Elinor Ostrom dies at 78; first woman to win Nobel in economics |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=13 June 2012 |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-elinor-ostrom-20120613-story.html |access-date=15 April 2015}} She joined the faculty as a visiting assistant professor. The first course she taught was an evening class on American government.{{cite journal |last=Zagorski |first=Nick |title=Profile of Elinor Ostrom |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=2006 |volume=103 |issue=51 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0609919103 |pmid=17164324 |pmc=1748208 |pages=19221–19223|bibcode=2006PNAS..10319221Z |doi-access=free }}

Ostrom is probably best known for revisiting the so-called “tragedy of the commons" – a conjecture proposed by biologist Garrett Hardin in 1968.{{cite journal |last1=Anderies |first1=John M. |last2=Janssen |first2=Marco A. |title=Elinor Ostrom (1933–2012): Pioneer in the Interdisciplinary Science of Coupled Social-Ecological Systems |journal=PLOS Biology |date=16 October 2012 |volume=10 |issue=10 |pages=e1001405 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001405 |pmc=3473022|doi-access=free }}

"In an article by the same name published in the journal Science, Hardin theorized that if each herdsman sharing a piece of common grazing land made the individually rational economic decision of increasing the number of cattle he keeps on the land, the collective effect would deplete or destroy the commons. In other words, multiple individuals—acting independently and rationally consulting their own self-interest—will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource, even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen. Ostrom believes that the “tragedy” in such situations isn’t inevitable, as Hardin thought. Instead, if the herders decide to cooperate with one another, monitoring each other’s use of the land and enforcing rules for managing it, they can avoid the tragedy."

Garrett Hardin believes that the most important aspect that we need to realize today is the need to abandon the principle of shared resources in reproduction. A possible alternative to the tragedy of the commons (shared needs) was described in Elinor Ostrom's book Governing the Commons. Based on her fieldwork, the book demonstrates that there are practical algorithms for the collective use of a limited common resource, which solve the many issues with both government/regulation driven solutions and market-based ones. File:SPEA.jpg, where Ostrom taught.]]In 1973, Ostrom and her husband founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University.{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop |title=The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis |publisher=Indiana.edu |access-date=October 13, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091007083917/http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/ |archive-date=October 7, 2009}} Examining the use of collective action, trust, and cooperation in the management of common pool resources (CPR), her institutional approach to public policy, known as the Institutional analysis and development framework (IAD), has been considered sufficiently distinct to be thought of as a separate school of public choice theory.{{Cite journal |last1=Mitchell |first1=W. C. |title=Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five years of public choice and political science |doi=10.1007/BF00115751 |journal=Public Choice |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=101–119 |year=1988 |s2cid=153671519 }} She authored many books in the fields of organizational theory, political science, and public administration. Elinor Ostrom was a dedicated scholar until the very end of her life. Indeed, on the day before she died, she sent e-mail messages to at least two different sets of coauthors about papers that she was writing with them. She was the chief scientific advisor for the International Council for Science (ICSU) Planet Under Pressure meeting in London in March, and Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre wrote that

"Lin, up until the very end, was heavily involved in our preparations for the Nobel laureate dialogues on global sustainability we will be hosting in Rio 17th and 18th of June during the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit. In the end, she decided she could not come in person, but was contributing sharp, enthusiastically charged, inputs, in the way only she could."{{Cite journal|last1=Arrow|first1=Kenneth J.|last2=Keohane|first2=Robert O.|last3=Levin|first3=Simon A.|date=2012-08-14|title=Elinor Ostrom: An uncommon woman for the commons|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|language=en|volume=109|issue=33|pages=13135–13136|doi=10.1073/pnas.1210827109|issn=0027-8424|pmc=3421197|bibcode=2012PNAS..10913135A|doi-access=free}}[https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/facts/ "Ostrom Facts"], Nobel Prize.org

It was long unanimously held among economists that natural resources that were collectively used by their users would be over-exploited and destroyed in the long-term. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters and forests. She showed that when natural resources are jointly used by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and they become used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/facts/|title=Elinor Ostrom – Facts|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=2019-03-05}}

Ostrom was appointed Professor of Political Science in 1974. She was the head of the department from 1980 to 1984, and then held the Arthur F. Bentley Chair of Political Science{{Cite journal |last1=Holland |first1=Guillaume |last2=Sene |first2=Omar |date=2010-09-01 |title=Elinor Ostrom et la Gouvernance Economique |journal=Revue d'économie politique |volume=120 |issue=3 |pages=441–452 |doi=10.3917/redp.203.0441 |issn=0373-2630|doi-access=free }} She was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2010 and held a partial appointment in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

She was senior research director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Distinguished Professor and Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences, and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs.{{Cite web|url=http://www.elinorostrom.com/|title=Elinor Ostrom, 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences: Indiana University|website=www.elinorostrom.com|access-date=2018-03-03}} The Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis was meant to utilize diverse scholars throughout economics, political science, and other fields to collaborate and attempt to understand how institutional arrangements in a diverse set of ecological and social economic political settings affected behavior and outcomes. The goal was not to fly around the world collecting data, rather it is to create a network of scholars who live in particular areas of the world and had strong interests in forest conditions and forest policy conducted the studies.{{Cite web|title=The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2009/ostrom/biographical/|access-date=2022-01-13|website=NobelPrize.org|language=en-US}}

Ostrom's innovative and ground-breaking research was supported by National Science Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Hynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, U.S.A.I.D., the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the National Institute of Mental Health.{{Cite book|last=McCay; Bennett|title=Elinor Ostrom. Biographical Memoirs|publisher=National Academy of Sciences|year=2014|url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/ostrom-elinor.pdf}}

Ostrom has been involved in international activities throughout her long and productive career. She had experience in Kenya, Nepal and Nigeria, and also made research trips to Australia, Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Poland and Zimbabwe. During workshops and research grants, she and her husband supported many international students, and visited researchers and policymakers. They did not have children of their own and used personal funds and efforts to receive grants to help others. In a 2010 interview, Ostrom noted that because they had no family to support, “I was not ever concerned about salary, so that’s never been an issue for me. For some colleagues who have big families, and all the rest, it’s a major issue.”

Ostrom was a founding member and first president of the IASC (International Association for the Study of the Commons).{{Cite web|url=https://iasc-commons.org/about-commons/|title=About the Commons|access-date=2021-06-09}} She was a lead researcher for the Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Resource Management Collaborative Research Support Program (SANREM CRSP), managed by Virginia Tech and funded by USAID.{{cite web |url=http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2009/10/2009-789.html |title=Researcher for Virginia Tech program wins Nobel Prize |publisher=Virginia Tech |access-date=January 2, 2011}} Beginning in 2008, she and her husband Vincent Ostrom advised the journal Transnational Corporations Review.{{cite news |title=Transnational Corporations Review |newspaper=Taylor & Francis|url=http://www.tnc-online.net/page/2010NO2/index.php}}

Research

Ostrom's early work emphasized the role of public choice on decisions influencing the production of public goods and services.{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/volume2.html |title=Polycentricity and Local Public Economies |access-date=2013-02-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130403071654/http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/volume2.html |archive-date=April 3, 2013}} Among her better known works in this area is her study on the polycentricity of police functions in Indianapolis.{{cite journal |last1=Ostrom|first1=Elinor|last2=Parks|first2=Roger B.|last3=Whitaker|first3=Gordon P.|pages=423–432|date=1973|url=http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/reprints/R73_4.pdf |title=Do We Really Want to Consolidate Urban Police Forces? A Reappraisal of Some Old Assertions |journal=Public Administration Review|volume=33|issue=5|access-date=February 8, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121102151203/http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/reprints/R73_4.pdf |archive-date=November 2, 2012|doi=10.2307/974306|jstor=974306}} Caring for the commons had to be a multiple task, organised from the ground up and shaped to cultural norms. It had to be discussed face to face, and based on trust. Dr. Ostrom, besides poring over satellite data and quizzing lobstermen herself, enjoyed employing game theory to try to predict the behaviour of people faced with limited resources. In her Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University—set up with her husband Vincent, a political scientist, in 1973—her students were given shares in a national common. When they discussed what they should do before they did it, their rate of return from their "investments" more than doubled. Her later, and more famous, work focused on how humans interact with ecosystems to maintain long-term sustainable resource yields. Common pool resources include many forests, fisheries, oil fields, grazing lands, and irrigation systems. She conducted her field studies on the management of pasture by locals in Africa and irrigation systems management in villages of western Nepal (e.g., Dang Deukhuri). Her work has considered how societies have developed diverse institutional arrangements for managing natural resources and avoiding ecosystem collapse in many cases, even though some arrangements have failed to prevent resource exhaustion. Her work emphasized the multifaceted nature of human–ecosystem interaction and argues against any singular "panacea" for individual social-ecological system problems.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXM47Ri1Kc | archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211118/ByXM47Ri1Kc| archive-date=2021-11-18 | url-status=live|title=Beyond the tragedy of the commons |publisher=Stockholm Whiteboard Seminars |date=2009-04-03 |access-date=2013-03-23}}{{cbignore}}

= "Design principles illustrated by long-enduring CPR (Common Pool Resource) institutions" =

In Governing the Commons, Ostrom summarized eight design principles that were present in the sustainable common pool resource institutions she studied:{{cite book |title=Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |year=1990 |pages=90, 91–102 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-40599-7}}{{Citation|last=Big Think|title=Ending The Tragedy of The Commons|date=2012-04-23|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5Q3VvpI7w| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211118/Qr5Q3VvpI7w| archive-date=2021-11-18 | url-status=live|access-date=2018-03-25}}{{cbignore}}

1. Clearly defined boundaries

Individuals or households who have rights to withdraw resource units from the CPR must be clearly defined, as must the boundaries of the CPR itself.

2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions

Appropriation rules restricting time, place, technology, and/or quantity of resource units are related to local labor, material, and/or money.

3. Collective-choice arrangements

Most individuals affected by the operational rules can participate in modifying the operational rules.

4. Monitoring

Monitors, who actively audit CPR conditions and appropriator behavior, are accountable to the appropriators or are the appropriators.

5. Graduated sanctions

Appropriators who violate operational rules are likely to be assessed graduated sanctions (depending on the seriousness and context of the offense) by other appropriators, by officials accountable to these appropriators, or by both.

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms

Appropriators and their officials have rapid access to low-cost local arenas to resolve conflicts among appropriators or between appropriators and officials.

7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize

The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities.

For CPRs that fire parts of larger systems:

8. Nested enterprises

Appropriation, provision, monitoring, enforcement, conflict resolution, and governance activities are organized in multiple layers of nested enterprises.

These principles have since been slightly modified and expanded to include a number of additional variables believed to affect the success of self-organized governance systems, including effective communication, internal trust and reciprocity, and the nature of the resource system as a whole.{{cite book |author1=Poteete, Janssen |author2=Elinor Ostrom |title=Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice |year=2010 |publisher=Princeton University Press}}

Ostrom and her many co-researchers have developed a comprehensive "Social-Ecological Systems (SES) framework", within which much of the still-evolving theory of common-pool resources and collective self-governance is now located.{{Cite journal |last1=Ostrom |first1=E. |author-link1=Elinor Ostrom |title=A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems |doi=10.1126/science.1172133 |journal=Science |volume=325 |issue=5939 |pages=419–422 |year=2009 |pmid=19628857 |bibcode=2009Sci...325..419O |hdl=11059/14638 |s2cid=39710673 |hdl-access=free }}

=Environmental protection=

According to the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, "Ostrom cautioned against single governmental units at global level to solve the collective action problem of coordinating work against environmental destruction. Partly, this is due to their complexity, and partly to the diversity of actors involved. Her proposal was that of a polycentric approach, where key management decisions should be made as close to the scene of events and the actors involved as possible." Ostrom helped disprove the idea held by economists that natural resources would be over-used and destroyed in the long run. Elinor Ostrom disproved this idea by conducting field studies on how people in small, local communities manage shared natural resources, such as pastures, fishing waters in Maine and Indonesia, and forests in Nepal. She showed that when natural resources are jointly managed by their users, in time, rules are established for how these are to be cared for and used in a way that is both economically and ecologically sustainable.Vedeld, Trond. 2010, February 12. [http://blog.nibrinternational.no/#post9 "A New Global Game – And How Best to Play It,"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624015615/http://blog.nibrinternational.no/#post9 |date=June 24, 2016 }} The NIBR International Blog.

=Ostrom's law=

Ostrom's law is an adage that represents how Elinor Ostrom's works in economics challenge previous theoretical frameworks and assumptions about property, especially the commons. Ostrom's detailed analyses of functional examples of the commons create an alternative view of the arrangement of resources that are both practically and theoretically possible. This eponymous law is stated succinctly by Lee Anne Fennell as:

A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory.{{cite journal |first1=Lee Anne |last1=Fennell |title=Ostrom's Law: Property rights in the commons |journal=International Journal of the Commons |date=Mar 2011 |issn=1875-0281 |pages=9–27 |volume=5 |issue=1 |doi=10.18352/ijc.252 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2011IJCom...5....9F |hdl=10535/7080 |hdl-access=free }}

Personal life

After college, Ostrom married a classmate, Charles Scott, and worked at General Radio in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while Scott attended Harvard Law School. They divorced several years later when Ostrom began contemplating a Ph.D.{{cite news |last=Harford |first=Tim |title=Do You Believe in Sharing? |date=30 August 2013 |newspaper=Financial Times |url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/afc5377e-1026-11e3-a258-00144feabdc0.html |access-date=15 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715022258/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/afc5377e-1026-11e3-a258-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=July 15, 2014}}

Her postgraduate seminar was led by Vincent Ostrom, an associate professor of political science, 14 years her senior, whom she married in 1963. This marked the beginning of a lifelong partnership named "love and contestation," as Ostrom put it in her dedication to her seminal 1990 book, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.{{Cite journal|last=Burke|first=Maureen|date=September 2011|title=People in Economics. The Master Artisan.|url=https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2011/09/pdf/people.pdf|journal=Finance & Development|pages=2–5}}

Awards and recognition

Ostrom was a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Philosophical Society,{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Elinor+Ostrom&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-05-24|website=search.amphilsoc.org}} and president of the American Political Science Association and the Public Choice Society. In 1999, she became the first woman to receive the prestigious Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science.{{cite web |title=The Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science – Prize Winners |url=http://skytteprize.statsvet.uu.se/PrizeWinners/tabid/1953/language/en-US/Default.aspx |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314212229/http://skytteprize.statsvet.uu.se/PrizeWinners/tabid/1953/language/en-US/Default.aspx |archive-date=March 14, 2012 |df=mdy-all }}

Ostrom was awarded the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award for Political Economy in 1998. Her presented paper, on "The Comparative Study of Public Economies",{{cite web |url=http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/seidmanweb.htm |title=Frank E. Seidman Award: Acceptance Paper |access-date=2013-02-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130212155120/http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/publications/materials/seidmanweb.htm |archive-date=February 12, 2013}} was followed by a discussion among Kenneth Arrow, Thomas Schelling, and Amartya Sen. She was awarded the John J. Carty Award from the National Academy of Sciences in 2004,{{cite web |title=John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science |url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty |publisher=National Academy of Sciences |access-date=February 25, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101229180532/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_carty |archive-date=December 29, 2010}} and, in 2005, received the James Madison Award by the American Political Science Association. In 2008, she became the first woman to receive the William H. Riker Prize in political science; and, the following year, she received the Tisch Civic Engagement Research Prize from the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. In 2010, the Utne Reader magazine included Ostrom as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World".{{cite journal |title=Elinor Ostrom: The Commoner |date=October 13, 2010 |url=http://www.utne.com/Politics/Utne-Reader-Visionaries-Elinor-Ostrom-Commons.aspx |publisher=Utne Reader |access-date=October 19, 2010}} She was named one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" in 2012.

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) awarded its Honorary Fellowship to her in 2002.File:Announcement Nobelprize Economics 2009-5.ogvIn 2008 she was awarded an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.{{cite web |url=http://www.ntnu.edu/phd/honorary-doctors |title=Honorary doctors at NTNU |publisher=Norwegian University of Science and Technology}}

In July 2019, Indiana University Bloomington announced that as part of their Bridging the Visibility Gap initiative, a statue of Ostrom would be placed outside of the building which houses the university's political science department.{{cite web |last1=Bloomington |first1=Inside IU |title=Around IU Bloomington |url=https://news.iu.edu/stories/2019/07/iub/inside/09-news-roundup.html |website=News at IU |access-date=27 August 2019 |language=en |date=9 July 2019}}

=Nobel Prize in Economics=

In 2009, Ostrom became the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom "for her analysis of economic governance", saying her work had demonstrated how common property could be successfully managed by groups using it. Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson shared the 10-million Swedish kronor (€990,000; $1.44 million) prize for their separate work in economic governance.{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8302662.stm |title=First woman wins economics Nobel |website=BBC News |date=12 October 2009 |access-date=15 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141021193547/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8302662.stm |archive-date=21 October 2014 |url-status=live }} As she had done with previous monetary prizes, Ostrom donated her award to the Workshop she helped to found.{{cite journal |author1-last=Arrow |author1-first=Kenneth |author1-link=Kenneth Arrow |author2-last=Keohane |author2-first=Robert O. |author2-link=Robert O. Keohane |author3-last=Levin |author3-first=Simon A. |author3-link=Simon A. Levin |title=Elinor Ostrom: An Uncommon Woman for The Commons |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |year=2012 |volume=109 |issue=33 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1210827109 |pages=13135–13136|pmc=3421197 |bibcode=2012PNAS..10913135A |doi-access=free }}

File:Group Photo (4171912803).jpg

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Ostrom's "research brought this topic from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention...by showing how common resources—forests, fisheries, oil fields or grazing lands—can be managed successfully by the people who use them rather than by governments or private companies". Ostrom's work in this regard challenged conventional wisdom, showing that common resources can be successfully managed without government regulation or privatization.{{cite news |last=Rampell |first=Catherine |title=Elinor Ostrom, Winner of Nobel in Economics, Dies at 78 |newspaper=New York Times |date=13 June 2012 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/business/elinor-ostrom-winner-of-nobel-in-economics-dies-at-78.html |access-date=15 April 2015}}

In awarding Ostrom the Nobel Prize for the Analysis of Economic Governance, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that her work "teaches us novel lessons about the deep mechanisms that sustain cooperation in human societies." Even if Ostrom's selection (along with co-recipient Oliver Williamson of the University of California, Berkeley) seemed odd to some, others saw it as an appropriate reaction to free-market inefficiencies highlighted by the 2008 financial crisis.

Death

Ostrom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in October 2011.{{cite news |author=Daniel Cole |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jun/13/elinor-ostrom |title=obituary |newspaper=Guardian |date=June 13, 2012 |access-date=2013-03-23 |location=London}}{{cite web |url=http://stateimpact.npr.org/indiana/2012/06/13/how-iu-nobel-laureate-elinor-ostrom-changed-the-world/ |last=Stokes |first=Kyle |title=How IU Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom Changed the World |website=StateImpact |publisher=Indiana Public Media |date=13 June 2012 |access-date=23 March 2013}} During the final year of her life, she continued to write and lecture, giving the Hayek Lecture at the Institute of Economic Affairs just eleven weeks before her death. She died at 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, June 12, 2012, at IU Health Bloomington Hospital at the age of 78. On the day of her death, she published her last article, "Green from the Grassroots," in Project Syndicate.{{cite web |last=Jessop |first=Bob |author-link=Bob Jessop |title=Introduction to Elinor Ostrom |website=Beyond Ostrom |url=http://beyondostrom.blog.rosalux.de/files/2013/07/I-2013a-Introduction-to-Ostrom.pdf |access-date=15 April 2015}}{{cite web |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |title=Green from the Grassroots |url=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/green-from-the-grassroots |publisher=Project Syndicate|date=2012-06-12 }} Indiana University president Michael McRobbie wrote: "Indiana University has lost an irreplaceable and magnificent treasure with the passing of Elinor Ostrom".{{cite news |title=Elinor Ostrom, Only Female Nobel Laureate in Economics, Dies |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/06/12/elinor-ostrom-only-female-nobel-laureate-in-economics-dies/ |newspaper=Wall Street Journal |date=12 June 2012}} Her Indiana colleague Michael McGinnis commented after her death that Ostrom donated her share of the $1.4 million Nobel award money to the Workshop—the biggest, by far, of several academic prizes with monetary awards that the Ostroms had given to the center over the years. Her husband Vincent died 17 days later from complications related to cancer. He was 92.{{Cite web|url=http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news-archive/22741.html|title=Distinguished Indiana University scholar Vincent Ostrom dies: IU News Room: Indiana University|website=newsinfo.iu.edu|access-date=2018-03-03}}

Selected publications

= Books =

{{cite book |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |title=Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |year=1990 |url=https://archive.org/details/governingcommons0000ostr/page/n5/mode/2up |url-access= registration |isbn=978-0-521-40599-7 |via = Internet Archive}}
{{cite book |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Schroeder |first2=Larry |last3=Wynne |first3=Susan |title=Institutional incentives and sustainable development: infrastructure policies in perspective |url=https://archive.org/details/institutionalinc0000ostr/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access= registration |publisher=Westview Press |location=Boulder |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-8133-1619-2}}
{{cite book |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Walker |first2=James |last3=Gardner |first3=Roy |title=Rules, games, and common-pool resources |publisher=University of Michigan Press |url= https://archive.org/details/rulesgamescommon0000ostr |url-access= registration |location=Ann Arbor |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-472-06546-2}}
{{cite book |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Walker |first2=James |title=Trust and reciprocity: interdisciplinary lessons from experimental research |publisher=Russell Sage Foundation |location=New York |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-87154-647-0}}
{{Cite book|title=The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid|last1=Gibson|first1=Clark C.|publisher=Oxford Scholarship Online|year=2005|isbn=978-0-199-27885-5| last2=Andersson|first2=Krister|last3=Ostrom|first3=Elinor|last4=Shivakumar|first4=Sujai}}
{{cite book |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |title=Understanding institutional diversity |publisher=Princeton University Press |location=Princeton |year=2005 |url= https://archive.org/details/understandingins0000ostr/page/n5/mode/2up |url-access= registration |isbn=978-0-691-12238-0}}
{{cite book |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Kanbur |first2=Ravi |last3=Guha-Khasnobis |first3=Basudeb |author-link2=Ravi Kanbur |title=Linking the formal and informal economy: concepts and policies |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-923729-6}}
{{cite book |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Hess |first2=Charlotte |title=Understanding knowledge as a commons: from theory to practice |publisher=MIT Press |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-262-51603-7}}
{{Cite book|title=Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice|last1=Ostrom|first1=Elinor|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=2010|isbn=978-0-691-14604-1|last2=Poteete|first2=Amy R|last3=Janssen|first3=Marco A|location=Princeton}}
{{Cite book|title=Improving Irrigation in Asia Sustainable Performance of an Innovative Intervention in Nepal|last1=Ostrom|first1=Elinor|publisher=Edward Elgar|year=2011|isbn=978-0-857-93826-8|location=Cheltenham, UK|last2=Lam|first2=Wai Fung|last3=Pradhan|first3=Prachanda|last4=Shivakoti|first4=Ganesh}}
{{Cite book|title=Property in Land and Other Resources|last1=Cole|first1=Daniel H.|publisher=Lincoln Institute of Land Policy|year=2011|isbn=978-1-55844-228-3|location=Cambridge, MA|last2=Ostrom|first2=Elinor}}
{{Cite book|title=The Future of the Commons Beyond Market Failure and Government Regulation|last1=Ostrom|first1=Elinor|publisher=The Institute of Economic Affairs|year=2012|isbn=978-0-255-36653-3|location=London|last2=Chang|first2=Christina|last3=Pennington|first3=Mark|last4=Tarko|first4=Vlad}}

= Chapters in books =

{{Citation |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |contribution=Engaging with impossibilities and possibilities |editor-last1=Kanbur |editor-first1=Ravi |editor-last2=Basu |editor-first2=Kaushik |editor-link1=Ravi Kanbur |editor-link2=Kaushik Basu |title=Arguments for a better world: essays in honor of Amartya Sen | Volume II: Society, institutions and development |pages=522–541 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford New York |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-19-923997-9 |postscript=.}}

= Journal articles =

{{Cite journal |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |last2=Crawford |first2=Sue E. S. |title=A grammar of institutions |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=89 |issue=3 |pages=582–600 |doi=10.2307/2082975 |date=September 1995 |jstor=2082975 |s2cid=144457898 }}
{{Cite journal |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |title=A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action: Presidential address, American Political Science Association, 1997 |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=92 |issue=1 |pages=1–22 |doi=10.2307/2585925 |date=March 1998 |jstor=2585925 |s2cid=140934199 |url=http://vgmu.hse.ru/data/2010/12/31/1208184461/%D0%9E%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BC%205-52.pdf }}
{{Cite journal |last1=Ostrom |first1=Elinor |title=A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems |journal=Science |date=24 July 2009 |volume=325 |issue=5939 |pages=419–422 |doi=10.1126/science.1172133|pmid=19628857 |bibcode=2009Sci...325..419O |hdl=11059/14638 |s2cid=39710673 |hdl-access=free }}
{{Cite journal |last=Ostrom |first=Elinor |s2cid=2371158 |title=Beyond markets and states: polycentric governance of complex economic systems |journal=American Economic Review |volume=100 |issue=3 |pages=641–672 |doi=10.1257/aer.100.3.641 |date=June 2010 }} [https://web.archive.org/web/20131105113916/http://bnp.binghamton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Ostrom-2010-Polycentric-Governance.pdf Pdf version.]

References

External links

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00f1l78 On Collaboration] Elinor Ostrom speaks on [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004kln9 BBC The Forum]
[https://ostromworkshop.indiana.edu/ Ostrom Workshop] at Indiana University
[https://web.archive.org/web/20111017183218/http://www.indiana.edu/~workshop/people/lostromcv.htm Elinor Ostrom Curriculum Vitae]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20061206013311/http://csid.asu.edu/ Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity] at Arizona State University
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120912201804/http://www.shareable.net/blog/no-panaceas-a-qa-with-elinor-ostrom No Panaceas! Elinor Ostrom Talks with Fran Korten]
{{Nobelprize}} including the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2009 Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems
[https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20100810142539/http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/pages/nobel Elinor Ostrom news, photos and videos] from The Herald-Times, Bloomington, Indiana.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20101204051702/http://www.iss.nl/About-ISS/History/Honorary-Fellows Profile] at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS).
Video of [http://www.annualreviews.org/page/audio#ostrom Annual Reviews Conversations Interview with Elinor Ostrom] (2011).
[http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/ostrom-elinor.pdf Bonnie J. McCay and Joan Bennett, "Elinor Ostrom", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2014)]
{{Internet Archive author |sname= Elinor Ostrom }}