Program Highlights

Elinor Ostrom Awarded Nobel Prize in Economics

Ford Foundation Grantee is First Woman to Receive Honor

NEW YORK, 15 October 2009—Indiana University Professor Elinor Ostrom, who developed a less traditional approach to economic theory by looking at non-market institutions, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for a body of work that was supported in part by the Ford Foundation. Ostrom, the first woman to be awarded the economics prize, received her initial Ford Foundation grant in 1991.

A political scientist, Ostrom's work has focused on how natural resources such as forests, lakes and pastures can be managed as common properties. She has found that when local community members have access to, and control of, their resources, they often create and enforce rules that lead to successful and sustainable economic governance models. With these findings, she has been able to establish a framework for sound community management of natural resources—resting on good governance, rule making and sanctions—and to dismantle an often conventional response to impose government regulations or privatize commonly owned resources.

Ostrom shares the Nobel prize with Oliver E. Williamson, a professor emeritus of business, economics and law at the University of California, at Berkley, who was recognized for his research on economic governance and business firms.

For nearly two decades, the Ford Foundation has supported Ostrom's visionary research on land and water management conducted through Indiana University, Tribhuvan University in Nepal, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Findings from programs such as the farmer-based irrigation systems in Nepal would shape her future theories and attract the attention of the Nobel committee.

Ostrom's groundbreaking work has expanded the parameters of traditional economic theory to include non-market institutions and the local communities that drive them. She has brought more attention to the field of sustainable resource development and helped to frame the foundation's work on community management and governance of forests, water and irrigation systems, and other natural resources.

Ostrom played a pivotal role in the establishment and growth of the International Association for the Study of the Commons and the International Forestry Resources and Institutions research program (now at the University of Michigan under new leadership). Both programs have received key funding from the foundation.

Ostrom's work continues to receive foundation support and parallel the goals of our grant making in sustainable development. Our recent grant to the International Forestry Resources and Institutions research program—the world's only long-term comparative, socio-ecological study of forest resources and institutions—has brought together Ostrom and other leading university research teams to examine forest ecosystem dynamics around the world and to assess the impact of this data in an effort to improve forest-related livelihoods and governance.

The foundation has been working in the field of natural resource development some 20 years making grants throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the United States. Our approaches have made significant strides, and we continue to refine our work to address changing needs and demands. Our current work, Expanding Community Rights over Natural Resources, supports visionary leaders and organizations developing natural resource policies to help poor communities gain access and ownership over their natural resources.

Ostrom is the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University's Cognitive Science program. She is also co-director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis; co-director of the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change; and a part-time professor of public and environmental affairs. Ostrom received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1965. She has served as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991; and as vice president and then president of the American Political Science Association from 1975 to 1976 and 1996 to 1997, respectively.

To learn more about Ostrom's work in Nepal, read her key note speech for the second international seminar of the Farmer Managed Irrigation Systems Promotion Trust, held in Kathmandu, in April 2002.

For more of Ostrom's nobel coverage, visit NPR, The New York Times and the Associated Press's YouTube channel (video).

Explore nobelprize.org to learn more about the 2009 recipients.