This Year’s Economics Nobel Winners

Congratulations to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. Both are highly deserving.

Ostrom’s work shows that market behavior emerges in settings not usually thought of as markets (condo associations, within government etc.).

Williamson has made brilliant contributions to the New Institutional Economics (NIE), which says that changing the rules of the game (the existing institutions) will alter the behavior of the people affected. Williamson’s work applies the economic way of thinking to deduce exactly how, with an emphasis on how transaction costs affect the interplay between individuals and firms.