The Prize in Economics 2009 - Press Release

Elinor Ostrom is one of two winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics, recognized for her work on the economics of the commons. (Her co-winner was Oliver Williamson.) While Ostrom analyzed many kinds of commons, such as fish stocks, woodlands, and water supplies, some of her work focused on the knowledge commons. See e.g. Ostrom and Hess (eds.), Understanding Knowledge as a Commons (MIT Press, 2006), . Her work shows that common property need not be privatized to be well-managed.