All have the important characteristic that they utilize local knowledge, articulate rules that are subject to modification over time-sometimes centuries, and involve much trial and error experimentation. Her approach is methodologically Coasian, only in that Ronald Coase, seeing that economic theorists had said much about the inevitable failure of decentralized mechanisms to solve public good incentive problems, and seeing that a favorite example used was the light house, asked a simple question: “Let’s have a look at how people have organized the delivery of light house services.” The answer, as is well known, is that they were privately funded, and people found ways to make sure that the ships that benefited paid for it when they stopped at ports!Įlinor, however, has examined a great variety of functionally and regionally distinct collective action systems for resource management-grazing commons, fisheries, irrigation systems, to name a few-to better understand what makes them succeed or fail. It is my honor on this occasion to celebrate Elinor Ostrom, whose unique and refreshing studies of the capacity of human groups to evolve spontaneous self governing institutions for the commons has changed the way many of us think about the so-called “problem” of common property resources. With Introductions by Vernon Smith and Gordon Tullock Rethinking Institutional Analysis: Interviews with Vincent and Elinor Ostrom
In honor of this award, Paul Dragos Aligica interviewed the scholars on their work in institutional analysis. On November 7th, 2003, the Fund for the Study of Spontaneous Orders, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and the Institute for Humane Studies honored Vincent and Elinor Ostrom with a Lifetime Achievement Award for their pioneering contributions to the field of political economy through their work on institutional reform, common pool resources, self-governance, and a variety of other topics.
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