Elinor Ostrom
Distinguished Sustainability Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability
Research Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Founding Director, Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity
Nobel Laureate, Economics
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
P.O.Box 872404
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA
Dr. Ostrom unfortunately passed away on June 12, 2012. As a political economist, Elinor Ostrom studied how institutions—conceptualized as sets of rules—affect the incentives of individuals interacting in repetitive and structured situations. Ostrom and her colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University developed the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, which enables them to analyze diversely structured markets, hierarchies, common-property regimes and local public economies using a common set of universal components. Large-scale studies of urban public economies demonstrated that systems composed of a few large-scale producers of services, such as forensic laboratories and training academies, combined with a large number of autonomous direct service producers (such as crime and traffic patrol) perform more effectively at a metropolitan level than a few consolidated producers. More recent empirical studies in the field and in the experimental laboratory have challenged the presumption that individuals jointly using a common-pool resource would inexorably be led to overuse, if not destroy, the resource. The design principles characterizing robust self-governed resource systems have been identified. An initial theory of institutional change has been formulated and is being tested.
Dr. Ostrom's teaching included institutions, society and the environment at Arizona State University.
In 2009, Elinor Ostrom became the first woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
PhD, Political Science and Government, University of California Los Angeles, 1965
MA, Political Science and Government, University of California Los Angeles, 1962
BA, Political Science and Government, University of California Los Angeles, 1954
Journal Articles
2013
Anderies, J. M., C. Folke, B. H. Walker and E. Ostrom. 2013. Aligning key concepts for global change policy: Robustness, resilience, and sustainability. Ecology and Society 18(2):Art. 8. DOI: 10.5751/ES{05178{180208. (link )
2010
Janssen, M. A., R. Holahan, A. Lee and E. Ostrom. 2010. . Lab experiments for the study of social-ecological systems. Science 328(5978):613-617. DOI: 10.1126/science.1183532. (link )
2009
Cox, J., E. Ostrom, J. Walker, J. Castillo, E. Coleman, R. Holahan, M. L. Schoon and B. Steed. 2009. Trust in private and common property experiments. Southern Economics Journal 75(4):957-975.
2007
Janssen, M. A., J. M. Anderies and E. Ostrom. 2007. Robustness of social-ecological systems in spatial and temporal variability. Society and Natural Resources 20(4):307-322. DOI: 10.1080/08941920601161320. (link )
Liu, J., T. Dietz, S. R. Carpenter, M. Alberti, C. Folke, E. Moran, A. N. Pell, P. Deadman, T. Kratz, J. Lubchenco, E. Ostrom, Z. Ouyang, W. Provencher, C. L. Redman, S. H. Schneider and W. W. Taylor. 2007. Complexity of coupled human and natural systems. Science 317(5844):1513-1516. DOI: 10.1126/science.1144004. (link )
Liu, J., T. Dietz, S. R. Carpenter, M. Alberti, C. Folke, E. Moran, A. N. Pell, P. Deadman, T. K. Kratz, J. Lubchenco, E. Ostrom, Z. Ouyang, W. Provencher, C. L. Redman, S. H. Schneider and W. W. Taylor. 2007. Coupled human and natural systems. Ambio 36(8):639-649. (link )
Ostrom, E., M. A. Janssen and J. M. Anderies. 2007. Going beyond panaceas special feature: Going beyond panaceas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 104:15176-15178. (link )
2006
Janssen, M. A. and E. Ostrom. 2006. Empirically based, agent-based models. Ecology and Society 11(2):Art. 37. (link )
Young, O. R., F. Berkhout, G. Gallopin, M. A. Janssen, E. Ostrom and S. E. van der Leeuw. 2006. The globalization of socio-ecological systems: An agenda for scientific research. Global Environmental Change 16(3):304-316. DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.03.004. (link )
2004
Anderies, J. M., M. A. Janssen and E. Ostrom. 2004. A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society 9(1):18. (link )
Books
2010
Poteete, A. R., M. A. Janssen and E. Ostrom. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. ISBN: 978-0691146034.
