Contents
Elinor Ostrom
Showing how communities can successfully manage shared resources such as forests, fisheries and irrigation systems.
Governing the Commons · Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources
- Born
- 7 August 1933
- Birthplace
- Los Angeles, California, United States
- Died
- 12 June 2012
More people
Elinor Ostrom
Elinor Ostrom studied rules that people create to govern resources together. Her fieldwork challenged the assumption that shared ownership must end in overuse, and she became the first woman to receive the economics prize in 2009.
Early life
Depression-era childhood
Grew up in Los Angeles in a household with limited money and became an active school debater.
Political science
Studied at UCLA, working alongside her education and completing her doctorate in 1965.
Career
- 1965
Indiana University
Began teaching and researching political organisation and public services.
- 1973
The Workshop
Co-founded an interdisciplinary research workshop with Vincent Ostrom.
- 1990s–2009
Comparative research
Extended studies of resource governance across countries and received the 2009 economics prize.
Books & ideas
Governing the Commons
Examined durable community arrangements for managing shared resources.
Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources
Co-authored an analysis linking field studies, institutions and experiments.
Understanding Institutional Diversity
Explored how different combinations of rules shape collective decisions.
Beyond economics
A research partnership
Married political scientist Vincent Ostrom; they collaborated while maintaining distinct research interests.
Collective problem-solving
Her work favoured close observation of real institutions over a single universal solution imposed everywhere.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Institutional biography and research ↗Photo: Holger Motzkau. CC BY-SA 3.0 · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
