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Elinor Ostrom

Elinor Ostrom

Research Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Elinor.Ostrom@asu.edu

School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
P.O.Box 872404
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402
USA

Titles

  • Distinguished Global Futures Scientist, Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
  • 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

Biography

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.

Education

  • 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

Expertise

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 )

Kinzig, A. P., P. Ehrlich, L. J. Alston, K. Arrow, S. Barrett, T. G. Buchman, G. Daily, B. Levin, S. A. Levin, M. G. Oppenheimer, E. Ostrom and D. Saari. 2013. Social norms and global environmental challenges: The complex interaction of behaviors, values, and policy. BioScience 63(3):164-175. DOI: 10.1525/bio.2013.63.3.5. (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.