Mises Wire

It’s Ostrom and Williamson

From The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009:

Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has 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.

Peter Klein writes:

Williamson was my dissertation chair and is a longtime friend. I’ll have more to say about the substance of his contributions soon but, for now, let me note that this is one of the most Austrian-friendly Nobel awards in years, perhaps since 1974. Readers interested in links between Williamson’s work, the fields of transaction cost economics and organizational economics, and the Austrian school should see Williamson’s 1991 article “Economic Institutions: Spontaneous and Intentional Governance” (Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization) or this short piece by Nicolai Foss and myself for the forthcoming Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics, which I am also editing.

Thomas DiLorenzo writes:

Elinor Ostrom is also very friendly to the Public Choice School. She
has written numerous articles and books applying public choice analysis
to the issue of federalism, the organization of state and local
government, etc. She is certainly familiar with the Austrian School,
as are some of her former students who I have met over the years.

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