A Modest Homage to Elinor Ostrom

Abstract

"The announcement, in October of 2009, of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economy, which was first promoted by the Bank of Sweden as a memorial to Alfred Nobel, constituted for many of us a more than pleasant surprise. The first reason for the pleasantness of the surprise was that, for the first time, a Nobel in Economy was awarded to a woman, breaking decades of a masculine-and mostly white-club of recipients of the award. The second was that the woman receiving the prize was not an economist! She was 'only' a political scientist... the third reason, and surely the less important, but nonetheless the most pleasurable for all of us who have had the privilege of interacting with her, is that she is a woman that has a profound social sensibility and an invaluable human quality."