I have just been introduced to the work of Elinor Ostrom, although she’s been around for a while. More than ever, her research is important.

From her website:

Analysing the design of long-enduring CPR institutions, Elinor Ostrom (1990) identified eight design principles which are prerequisites for a stable CPR arrangement:

1. Clearly defined boundaries

2. Congruence between appropriation and provision rules and local conditions

3. Collective-choice arrangements allowing for the participation of most of the appropriators in the decision making process

4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators

5. Graduated sanctions for appropriators who do not respect community rules

6. Conflict-resolution mechanisms which are cheap and easy of access

7. Minimal recognition of rights to organize (e.g., by the government)

8. In case of larger CPRs: Organisation in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small, local CPRs at their bases.

Nhân tiện bà Ostrom đoạt giải Nobel kinh tế năm 2009 chứng minh thành công thuyết “cộng đồng sử dụng tài nguyên thiên nhiên” thì sẽ quản lý nó tốt hơn so với tư nhân và nhà nước, ta cũng mạo muội “đàm đạo” đôi điều về học thuyết này qua các bài học kinh nghiệm ở Việt Nam và các nước khác.

Thực tế, không chỉ trong lĩnh vực quản lý tài nguyên, cộng đồng mới được tham gia vào quản lý, bảo vệ và sử dụng nó thì mới mang lại hiệu quả mà ở hầu hết các lĩnh vực khác ở Việt Nam cộng đồng đều tham gia vào nhưng ở các chừng mực khác nhau (ít – trung bình – nhiều). Đây là cách tiếp cận từ dưới lên trên (bottom – up) và nó đang trở thành một điều kiện tiên quyết đối với các quốc gia muốn phát triển chứ không còn là “mốt” nữa. Ngoài những khu rừng (Vườn quốc gia, Khu bảo tồn thiên nhiên) thuộc sở hữu bởi nhà nước đang bị “rỗng hoá”, chúng ta vẫn có thể bắt gặp nhiều khu rừng nhỏ (forest blocks) thuộc sở hữu của cộng đồng vẫn xanh tốt và chứa đựng các hệ sinh thái nguyên sinh, đó là các khu rừng thiêng của các cộng đồng dân tộc thiểu số vùng núi phía Bắc. Không biết miền Trung và miền Nam có kiểu rừng này không nhưng tôi tin chắc rằng có những kiểu rừng tương tự như thế nhưng với tên gọi khác nhau do Việt Nam có đến 52 DTTS (trừ Kinh và Hoa) và sự phân bố của các DTTS cũng khá phong phú.

Rất tiếc là ở Việt Nam, cứ chỗ nào còn chút rừng nguyên sinh là nhà nước lại “vơ” vào làm của riêng và thành lập lên những Khu bảo tồn để ngăn cấm sự xâm phạm của cộng đồng địa phương cho kế sinh nhai của họ đồng thời tạo cơ hội cho đám “dân gian” khai thác và vận chuyển lén lút nguồn tài nguyên thiên nhiên trong sự bất lực của lực lượng yếu và kém về chuyên môn lẫn nghiệp vụ – Kiểm lâm. Nhìn vào Bảng tổng hợp dưới đây ta sẽ thấy rõ tốc độ “quy hoạch” rừng của cộng đồng thành rừng của “sở hữu toàn dân” thay đổi như thế nào qua các giai đoạn.

Nguồn: tổng hợp từ nhiều nguồn khác nhau

Với lối quản lý và điều hành từ trên xuống dưới (top-down) làm cho tài sản ngàn đời của cộng đồng được cha ông để lại bị “tịch thu đẹp” để làm tài sản quốc gia (Vườn quốc gia) làm cho cộng đồng nhiều nơi mất đường sinh sống. Thêm vào đó, các chính sách/luật pháp nghiêm khắc được ban hành để nghiêm cấm mọi hoạt động của người dân xâm phạm đến VQG và KBT gây ra những hậu quả tất yếu là “đói ăn vụng, túng làm liều”, rừng mất vẫn hoàn mất và người dân coi thường pháp luật. Các vụ vận chuyển và mua bán động vật hoang dã (vận chuyển hổ), các vụ phá rừng (Choáng váng với rừng ở Mường Nhé) xảy ra liên miên trong suốt thời gian dài là một minh chứng cho cách điều hành top-down đó.

Nhận biết được những sai trái này, rất nhiều các tổ chức quốc tế, trong nước, cá nhân, thậm chí một số cơ quan chính phủ muốn hỗ trợ để thay đổi cách thức quản lý và sử dụng tài nguyên thiên nhiên thông qua việc trả lại (giao trực tiếp) cho cộng đồng (đừng nhầm với việc khoán rừng trong CT661) để quản lý và sử dụng những khu rừng tự nhiên trước kia của họ bị vơ vét vào thành VQG, KBTTN. Đơn cử như  sáng kiến trong Quỹ bảo tồn Việt Nam về “Thoả thuận sử dụng tài nguyên thiên nhiên” sau được đổi thành “Cơ chế chia sẻ lợi ích”. Tuy nhiên, hành lang pháp lý lại không chịu thay đổi vì thế sáng kiến này không được thí điểm và người dân vẫn ngậm ngùi nhìn tài nguyên thiên nhiên dần mất. Một số mô hình khác được thực hiện manh mún ở các vùng đệm của khu bảo tồn nhưng do vùng đệm đã cạn kiệt nguồn tài nguyên nên việc thí điểm mô hình này không nhìn thấy hiệu quả rõ nét.

Nhìn ngược lại vấn đề, có phải tất cả nguồn tài nguyên thiên nhiên do nhà nước quản lý đều không hiệu quả? Không hoàn toàn đúng. Một số nơi, các mô hình quản lý tài nguyên thuộc sở hữu nhà nước vẫn có hiệu quả, chẳng hạn Khu bảo tồn Bán Đảo Sơn Trà, có lẽ là nơi duy nhất ở Việt Nam có rừng nằm ở thành phố/gần thành phố Đà Nẵng và có quần thể Chà vá chân nâu lớn nhất Việt Nam tồn tại nơi đây. Bởi lẽ có điều này là do khu vực có sự chiếm đóng của bộ đội Hải quân, là khu vực quân sự nên không có hoạt động nào tác hại lên sinh cảnh và quần thể động vật nơi này. Tương tự, Nepal cũng là nơi bảo vệ rừng khá tốt do việc này được quân đội đảm nhận. Vì thế, hoạt động du lịch thiên nhiên đã mang về cho Nepal nguồn thu đáng kể. Xem thêm trong bài “Bảo vệ rừng, Kiểm lâm hay bộ đội, ai tốt hơn ai“.

Buồn ngủ quá, ta tạm gác lại và bàn bạc sau khi có dịp.

A.Cáo

Earlier this month, the Nobel memorial economics prize(s) awarded to Ostrom and Williamson caused a bit of a stir, and for a variety of remarkable reasons, not the least of which is Ostrom’s career being ostensibly limited to the political sciences.  Reflexively hailing the merits of analysis whose influence stretches beyond traditional disciplines over “pure” research may ring superficial, but not because doing so is the conceit of prevailing preferences for multi-(everything).  Rather, embracing such a qualitative distinction seems to reinforce ideas that the noumena of human philosophy can be compartmentalized according to some defined range of subjects that must in turn be transcended for the sake of holistic knowledge.  By my limited understanding of these things, the governance phenomena that the two recipients have been both witnesses to – and also advocates of – do not raise issues of specialism vice generalism, but rather offer context between and among traditional constructions of knowledge to pursue the fundamental questions: What is, and what can and ought be?

Now, with that preliminary tangent in mind (and out of the way), I’d like to snatch out of context a brief phrase from Ostrom’s “Stockholm whiteboard seminar” which I came to by way of the indispensable Global Dashboard:

We’ve got to have institutions that match the complexity of the systems that are involved. . . Build enough diversity to cope with the diversity of the world . . . so that you don’t try to have a uniform top-down panacea that’s predicted to cure everything and instead of curing it, kills it.

What is being challenged here, it seems, is a certain tendency to think that our interactions with circumstance can somehow be reduced to their purest, most significant form…and then managed in a linear, efficient fashion — by directive — with a minimum of repercussions to be contained.  Along such lines, where the reaction of the world, the Other, bears little resemblance to the plan envisioned, missteps were surely made in distilling the essence of the problem and not in the fundamentally misguided premise of the solution.

The orchestration of policy and governance arrangements that refuse to be bounded by existing governmental, organizational, or economic capabilities will increasingly require a certain release, a freedom, from our designs in favor of a willingness, and readiness, to embrace substantive contributions from outside “normal” channels of power for their own sake and on their own merits.  When we recognize the need to go “beyond” – beyond the discipline, institution, nation — it is a recognition of the insufficiency of our constructs rather than of the knowledge itself.

A w tym tygodniu przeczytacie o tym, jak nagroda Nobla, która po raz pierwszy trafiła aż do czterech pań w jednym roku, wpływa na to postrzeganie pań w nauce przez społeczeństwo; o tym, jak efektywny jest tzw. brand-placement; a na koniec perełka: o znaczeniu seksu oralnego w świecie zwierząt.

1. W najnowszym Science wywiad-rzeka z laureatkami tegorocznych Nobli. Odkąd przyznawane są te nagrody (czyli od blisko 110 lat) nigdy nie zdarzyło się, aby nagroda trafiła do więcej niż jednej pani w ciągu roku (w kategoriach naukowych) – oto kolejny przykład dyskryminacji płci… W tym roku celebrowaliśmy aż cztery panie: Elizabeth Blackburn oraz Carol Greider otrzymały nagrodę w dziedzinie fizjologii i medycyny, Ada Yonath – w dziedzinie chemii, zaś Elinor Ostrom (jedyna pani, o której nie pisałem na blogu) – w dziedzinie ekonomii. Dołączyły w ten sposób do liczącego na dzień dzisiejszy 17 osób grona laureatek nagrody Nobla. Dwoje dziennikarzy z tygodnika Science przepytało laureatki, jak to jest dostać nagrodę Nobla, jak to wpływa na ich kariery, ale także czy ciężko jest być kobietą-naukowcem i jak zmienia się postrzeganie pań w nauce właśnie dzięki takim wydarzeniom, jak przyznanie nagrody Nobla.

“2009 Nobels: Break or Breakthrough for Women?”, Jeff Mervis, Kate Trevis, Science 326(5953): 656-8; DOI: 10.1126/science.326_656 (30 Oct 2009)

2. Dwóch specjalistów w zakresie mediów i psychologii zmierzyło się dwa lata temu z mitem tzw. brand-placement, czyli coraz częstszego zjawiska używania produktów sponsora w filmie w rzucający się w oczy sposób. Klasycznym przykładem jest James Bond jeżdżący zawsze Aston Martinem i noszący zegarki firmy Omega. Ale oczywiście brand-placement (czy też product-placement) może być znacznie subtelniejszy, zwłaszcza gdy mamy do czynienia z markami, które nie mogą się obnosić aż tak majestatycznie ze swoją obecnością w filmie. Badacze twierdzą, że taka strategia jest skuteczna, ja osobiście – będąc w środku lektury Buyology Martina Londstroma – śmiem mieć inne zdanie. Ale lektura pracy ciekawa, nawet jeśli tylko żeby zobaczyć, w jaki sposób brand-placement może być wykonywany. A być przekonają Was ich wyniki…

“The Effectiveness of Brand Placements in the Movies: Levels of Placements, Explicit and Implicit Memory, and Brand-Choice Behavior”, Moonhee  Yang & David R.  Roskos-Ewoldsen, Journal of Communication 57(3): 469-89 (13 Aug 2007)

3. PLoS ONE publikuje właśnie pracę, która aż się prosi o jakiś dobry komiksowy żart. Niestety artysta ze mnie żaden, więc tylko powiem, o co chodzi. Otóż grupa badaczy z Chin i Wielkiej Brytanii sprawdziła, jak seks oralny wpływa na długość erekcji u nietoperzy. A jest to kwestia dość niezwykła, ponieważ bardzo niewiele zwierząt – poza ludźmi oczywiście – uprawia seks oralny. Zdarza się to u szympansów bonobo, ale w ich przypadku jest to raczej rodzaj zabawy między młodocianymi samcami. Okazuje się jednak, że u pewnego gatunku nietoperza – Cynopterus sphinx – fellatio jest zjawiskiem powszechnym, zwłaszcza w czasie stosunku. W dodatku okazuje się, że po pierwsze kopulacja poprzedzona przez seks oralny trwa średnio znacznie dłużej niż stosunek, któremu seks oralny nie towarzyszył w ogóle, a po drugie długość stosunku zależy od czasu poświęconego przez partnerkę na lizanie członka partnera (im dłużej, tym najwyraźniej lepiej). Autorzy pracy, poza suchą obserwacją tego faktu, podają też cztery możliwe hipotezy wyjaśniające, dlaczego takie zachowanie mogło wyewoluować u tego gatunku.

“Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time”, Min Tan, Gareth Jones, Guangjian Zhu, Jianping Ye, Tiyu Hong, Shanyi Zhou, Shuyi Zhang, Libiao Zhang, PLoS ONE 4(10) :e7595;  DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007595 (28 Oct 2009)

Interesantísimos párrafos de Boettke sobre la cuestión:

An important question to ask, I think, is why so much theorizing in the social sciences in the 20th century saw the consequences of free choice as so fragile as opposed to robust.  Man is a “fragile” creature physically as opposed to nature ‘red in tooth and claw’.  But our mental faculties enable us to not only survive but thrive.  How?  I would contend that it is our ability to calculate and coordinate with on another to realize the benefits of social cooperation under the division of labor.  And this is a function of the “rules” we live by in our interactions with one another and with nature, and the effectiveness of the enforcement of those rules.  Rules can either steer humanity toward emphasizing the cooperative propensity to ‘truck, barter, exchange’ or the conflictual propensity to ‘rape, pillage, plunder’.  Those societies that reinforce our cooperative propensity thrive as members of that society experience peace and prosperity, while those societies that reinforce our conflictual propensity will languish in violence and poverty.

Véanse también los dos artículos recientes de John Stossel en relación la libertad y Ostrom: 1 y 2

She has studied, for example, self-governing irrigation systems in Nepal and found successes never anticipated in the textbooks. “Irrigation systems built and governed by the farmers themselves are on average in better repair, deliver more water, and have higher agricultural productivity than those provided and managed by a government agency. … (F)armers craft their own rules, which frequently offset the perverse incentives they face in their particular physical and cultural settings. These rules may be almost invisible to outsiders. …”

Muy recomendable es el artículo de Elinor Ostrom titulado “Institutions and the Environment” en The Journal of Institute of Economic Affairs.

En próximos posts más sobre el tema del desarrollo y las instituciones.

Irritated with the colossal influx of emails (particularly from his native state) finally Nobel laureate and winner of this year’s chemistry Nobel V. Ramakrishnan had to retort:

“We are all human beings and our nationality is simply an accident of birth”

No, I’m not going to examine how much Indian he is, like several others who have been doing since the announcement. National boundaries are of no value in intellectual sphere and if you do not come out of this trap you will never be able to appreciate the beauty of the wisdom prevalent around you.

Shift your focus from Ramakrishna and zero in on Ostrom and Williamson.                    

“Appreciation of Interdisciplinary Approach” exactly that is a buzz phrase around this year’s Nobel prizes. Ramakrishnan with background in physics got Nobel in chemistry and again with background in political science Ostrom got Nobel in economics sciences.

No doubt this appreciation will have ripple effect and our varsities will sooner or later start pondering over the importance of lateral thinking (a term coined by Edward de bono, the originator of Six Thinking Hats ) in solving creeping environmental problems of today’s world and several continuing obstinate problems related to inequality. Currently in Indian universities the rigid fortress of different streams of knowledge is almost impregnable despite an exhortation by Yashpal led knowledge commission.

Chauvinism will let us nowhere and by focusing on “managing conflicts of interests” one can even win a Nobel, like Ostrom, despite peoples’ common notion that economics is a study of market dynamics and there is no direct relation between market and a research work on “polycentric governance” . At least Srikanth  Srinivas in the latest issue of Businessworld tried to put forward it, which I’m not going to buy.

In the paper under title “information for the people” Nobel-prize committee explains why economic science should extend beyond price theory and why an understanding of non-market institution, where considerable economic activity actually takes place, is must.

Ostrom’s works basically talks about “decentralization”, “common property management” and try to find out alternatives to privatization or imposed regulation where Williamson provides the answer to classic problem “why are there large firms?”

If you dig further into the matter, you will be surprised to find out how Ostron’s work is directly linked with prevalent traditional wisdom and common resource sharing traditions of several parts of India and is indirectly linked with Mahatma Gandhi’s decentralized proposal.

But Ostrom warns in one of her interview about the subtlety required in dealing with these decentralization initiatives.

 On the other hand Williamson’s explanations of the existence and life cycle of any firm are quite interesting. His analysis of “substantial haggling cost” as one of the substantial reason for the origin of any firm, talks about ‘outsourcing business’ too.

Implicit contracts between household members can be explained with the help of his general framework. I’m thinking about doing some mental exercise over the framework and its application in understanding the implicit contracts within my family. I hope it will be interesting…

von Tango, Fischen und Software und davon, wie wir unsere eigene Welt bauen: Eine halbe Stunde Redezeit in der WDR Redezeit: “Neugier genügt” – mit Thomas Koch. Hier der link zum podcast.

Ich hab’ doch da tatsächlich gesagt, dass Wasser und Land die “zentralen produktiven Ressourcen von früher sind”… sind sie natürlich auch noch heute.

Ach so, ja: ich bin keine Ökonomin.

The good news on Wall Street lately has little meaning for the rest of us.  Yesterday, the Dow topped 10,000.  The numbers signify a return to stability more than a return to growth.  Though the market enjoys a modest up swing, hold off on the celebration.  I see at least two explanations for the bullish performance: a market bubble and penny pinching companies. 

A breakingnews.com story put yesterday’s Dow into historical context.  If you take out the dotcom and housing bubbles and assume a nominal annual growth rate of four percent since 1995 (two percent real growth and two percent inflation), the Dow “valuation today would be just north of 7,800.”  Today’s numbers, according to historical analysis, reflect higher than average growth rates.  

Cost cutting companies provide another explanation for recent highs.  Facing devastating market devaluations, companies cut inventories and eliminate jobs.  Profits will then rise relative to previous periods of poor performance.  As companies post gains- stocks rise.  What we are seeing could be more of a new status quo: low growth and smaller companies. Smaller companies mean fewer jobs, sustained, institutional unemployment and lower living standards for all.  

A Lesson in Personal Responsibility- Okay, Get out the Champagne

Congratulations to 76-year-old Elinor Ostrom, the first women to win a Nobel Prize in economics.  Ostrom found that individuals can manage common resources more efficiently than government or private institutions do. 

“What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people involved — as opposed to just having somebody in Washington … make a rule,” Ostrom told reporters. 

Her work focused on public land and resource use.  Her insights tell us not to rely on government or the private markets to solve our problems.  Those conclusions may be a little abstract, but I agree with the first part.  Efficient economies balance personal incentive with public outcomes.  Governments cannot regulate every aspect of the economy.  Individuals need the freedom to adapt to changing conditions without waiting for a bailout. 

What can citizens do?  Focus on personal initiave.  We, the participants of a private marketplace, can solve our problems by building private industry.  Governments cannot efficiently fund the recovery.  Look at what AIG did with its money.  Cash that didn’t go to sustaining a flawed securities industry went to paying out huge bonuses.  Little of the bailout, or stimulus for that matter, has actually reached worthy projects.  The path to real growth begins when private banks, investors and entreprenuers create capital flow. 

There’s much more to this story.  I just wanted to take a moment to cheers Ostrom and her lesson of personal reasonability.

I want to use the occasion of Blog Action Day to reflect a bit on how Elinor Ostrom’s work (this year’s Nobel in Economic Sciences) may help us deal with climate change. In short, many solutions will emerge from collective action at the local level that solve problems according to the different local conditions. One challenge will be to ensure that these local experiments and solutions will learn from each other.

Here are a few points from Lin Ostrom’s work that I think are relevant for the climate change discussions:

1. Her work clearly refutes the Tragedy of the Commons as a myth shows that shared resources can be managed collectively.
2. State and private property are not the only models of ownership and management for resources; for centuries local communities and small groups of forest dweller, farmers and fishers have been managing resources collectively developing at times very sophisticated management systems.
3. The state is not always the best actor to manage shared resources – it is often better to allow for local variations and give autonomy to local groups so these can identify the best solutions for the specific context.
4. We have to work together across disciplines and topics to see the right patterns and make the right connections to identify solutions that work.

What does that mean for climate change?

1. It is possible to manage our shared resources (the earth’s diverse ecosystems and the atmosphere) that are crucial for our climate system to function without state control or privatizing them.
2. New forms of ownership that transcend the private and public realm and that put the responsibility in the hands of the users (all of us) can trigger local action.
3. While a general climate treaty will help to galvanize action across the world, governments have to be bolder to allow and support local changes and give people the chance to experiment with different ways of dealing with the challenges posed by climate change.
4. The climate change space is still far too fragmented to come up with solutions that will be effective and have the support of a majority of societal actors. Environmental conservation, rights of local people, or business opportunities that carbon trade schemes offer do not have to be competing with one another, but they are in many cases today.

For more on Lin Ostrom’s work go to IU’s Workshop on Political Theory that she founded and still directs and the website of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), of which she was the founding president.

Macroeconomist Paul Romer, himself a hot favorite for Nobel, explains Lin Ostrom’s contribution in this article. The best I have read thus far.

My teacher, Philippe Aghion, is not so amused by the Nobel award.

Nobel Laureate Michael Spence nicely summarizes contributions of 2009 Nobel winners Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson in this article.

Here are reactions of other economists to this year’s Nobel awards.

Lynne Kiesling

Today David Henderson has penned the traditional Wall Street Journal commentary on yesterday’s Nobel award to Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. He provides an excellent summary of the importance of their work, and I recommend it to you highly. In fact, David’s theme reconciles what some commenters have observed as a political or ideological contradiction. For example, Cheryl Morgan notes that both Henry Farrell and I are thrilled at the prize, and that

Henry blogs for Crooked Timber which is a fairly left wing political blog, whereas Lynne has distinct Libertarian leanings. For both of them to be happy about the Nobel Prize seems quite remarkable.

[I would not capitalize libertarian, and would say classical liberal, but that's a quibble.]

David nails precisely why both Henry and I can be thrilled: both Ostrom and Williamson do detailed, careful, empirical, real-world work to inform the theories they derive, and both show the value and efficacy of governance institutions that are organic, emergent, and voluntary. As David notes,

A better way to sum up their work is that what Ms. Ostrom and Mr. Willamson really show is that voluntary associations work.

Consider Mr. Williamson’s work. Drawing on 1991 Nobel laureate Ronald Coase’s work on why firms exist, Mr. Williamson showed that these voluntary institutions exist to solve problems that arms-length market transactions have trouble solving. …

In her work on development economics, Ms. Ostrom concludes that top-down solutions don’t help poor countries.

In his entire article David has captured much of the essence of why I think their work is so important and valuable for our understanding of human action.

In Forbes, Vernon Smith has a complementary (and complimentary) article on Ostrom’s work, which naturally dovetails with his. Vernon helpfully points out that Ostrom has “relentlessly pursued” the answers to two questions:

(1) Since “everybody’s property is nobody’s property,” how is it that there are so many cases where collectives of ordinary people with no education and with none of the economists’ knowledge of “the tragedy of the commons,” in fact discover ingenious rules (institutions) for taking the “tragedy” out of a productive resource they hold in common? …

(2) As a distinguished political-economic scientist she will be the first to tell you that there are also plenty of commons problems that represent institutional failures and fragilities; she has asked why, and what makes the difference between success and failure?

Vernon also highlights another reason I love her work and find it so useful, and a reason why I think many of my more theoretical colleagues are not as aware of her work as they should be:

… Ostrom brings a distinct style in applying her skill in different methodologies. She blends field and laboratory empirical methods, economic and game theory, the really important ingredient of scientific common sense, and she constantly challenges her own understanding by looking at new potentially contrary evidence and designing new experiments to challenge her understanding of the emergent historical rules and the theory used to explicate them.

Bluntly: Ostrom is not bound by what I see as the methodological hegemony that persists in economics, and that I believe is pernicious and leads to the undervaluation of methodologically diverse political economy. That’s why, as one of my close friends emailed me yesterday morning, the first woman to win an economics Nobel is in the political science department. Our methodological hegemony serves as blinders to other effective and important ways to analyze real-world political economy questions.

That’s why when economists like Steve Levitt admit to being embarrassed at not having heard of Elinor Ostrom’s work, my reaction is that they should be embarrassed. I give him great credit for being embarrassed, and I hope that he and others will now pay closer attention to her work, and to the work of other economists who use a variety of approaches to analyze political economy questions.

Posted by Audiegrl

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Ostrom became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize since 1969. She was awarded for her work in economics. She did a research called “tragedy of commons” that is relevant to combating global warming.

Ostrom believes in the power of inviduals in solving big problems – problems that takes the government a long time to reach an international agreement. Reason being that over time, people often develop insitutions, social networks and interaction that produce solutions to environmental problems. She based her studies on user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins.

In simpler terms, Ostrom concludes that social network is important in solving these problems. Many economists ignored this point because they could not come up with a fancy model to describe how it works.

Points to take home today:

a) not every solution can be modelled. sometimes you gotta try (and be practical) it to make it work.

b) don’t underestimate the power of research

** Read More on http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/elinor-ostrom-and-oliver-e-williamson-win-nobel-in-economic-science/

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson hanno vinto il Nobel per l’economia di quest’anno grazie alla loro analisi sull’economic governace.

La Ostrom, in particolare, è la prima donna a vincere il premio dal 1968, anno in cui è stato fondato.

Che Elinor Ostrom,  per tutti una scienziata della politica, ottenga ora il Nobel per l’economia (insieme a O. E. Williamson) credo stia creando il panico tra gli economisti – almeno tra quelli che hanno sempre pensato a confini rigidi (e invalicabili) tra le scienze sociali (che sono la maggiore parte, purtroppo per gli studenti di economia). Nessun motivo di panico per chi, economista o non economista, dei confini disciplinari non importa quasi nulla.

Confesso che di Elinor Ostrom ho molto amato – dedicandogli il tempo che merita – il suo Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Actions (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990). Un libro difficile, al quale devi dedicare tempo e altre letture per capirlo – ma alla fine ti senti di aver fatto un passo avanti nella comprensione della società e del processo economico.

Di quel libro, poi, ho sempre trovato interessante il fatto che una studiosa americana ponesse la sua attenzione e il suo interesse su dei meccanismi di gestione collettiva delle risorse naturali che avevano caratterizzato l’Europa – mentre qui si vivevano quei meccanismi come arcaici. Se tra economisti pronunciavi la parola “comunanze” ti guardavano con disprezzo (fino a ieri, perché da oggi sarà un po’ più difficile).

Saranno stati questi (moralmente) penosi “fallimenti del mercato” che non riusciamo a nascondere, quotidiani e sfacciati, ad averci fatto ricordare di Elinor Ostrom? Ad averci fatto ricordare, anche, di Oliver E. Williamson – al quale il Nobel avrebbero dovuto darlo nel 1991, quando lo diedero a Ronald H. Coase. Ma tant’è.

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting di O.E. Williamson (The Free Press, New York, 1985) – del quale esiste una traduzione italiana – è un libro difficile (di nuovo) e affascinante, e fondamentale per comprendere il capitalismo contemporaneo. Da qualche parte ci sarà un corso dedicato a questo libro!

(Ricordo ancora il mese intero che gli ho dedicato, appena uscito, a leggerlo e rileggerlo  – che non era facile per me allora – in una biblioteca, in Inghilterra, dove ti muovevi camminando  su una guida di sughero, per non disturbare – e i tavoli si affacciavano su una grande finestra.)

Ma non perdiamo il filo: voi che siete studenti di una facoltà di economia quando e come vi siete incontrati con Elinor Ostrom e Oliver E. Williamson?

Proprio oggi, nel giorno dei premi nobel all’economia, ho pubblicato un articolo duro sull’accademia della scienza economica.

Chi sono i vincitori dei premi nobel assegnati oggi?  Elinor Ostrom e Oliver Williamson. Per la prima volta viene premiata una donna.

La Ostrom non è un’economista ma una scienziata politica e si è sempre occupata di commons, cioè dei beni pubblici. Il suo merito, a mio modesto parere, è stato quello di dare una visione originale rispetto a tutta la teoria della public choice di  James M. Buchanan. In poche parole l’odierna premio nobel sostiene che sia necessario uscire dalla dicotomia pubblico contro privato sostenendo alcune forme di governo collettivo. In un certo senso supera il modello del “fallimento dello stato” tipico della public choice, per un modello legato alla visione della complessità dei sistemi sociali nella gestione dei commons.

Posso affermare che sia un nobel meritato poichè la Ostrom ha indagato, con un approccio complesso e multidisciplinare, uno dei problemi cardine della scienza economica, cioè i beni pubblici, uno dei più grandi fallimenti del mercato.

Olivier Williamson è uno di quei economisti che gli sventurati studenti di economia si ritrovano a leggere sia che essi abbiano un approccio aziendalista o politico. Williamson, insieme a Coase, è famoso per la teoria dei costi di transizione. Molti studenti di socilogia l’hanno incontrato sicuramente sul loro cammino poichè anche la sociologia economica si è occupata della teoria dell’economia neo-istituzionale di Williamson.

L’approccio neo-istituzionale individua nei costi di transazione l’unico intoppo al sistema perfetto dello scambio. I costi di transazione sono legati a tre ordini di problemi: razionalità limitata: non è possibile prevedere tutti i possibili casi che si possono presentare ed il loro esito, asimmetria informativa: i contraenti non posseggono le stesse informazioni, opportunismo (azzardo morale): i contraenti sono inclini a perseguire il proprio interesse sopra ogni cosa (anche a danno della controparte). I sistemi sociali (ad esempio un’impresa) si devono comportare in modo da minimizzare i costi di transizione e i comportamenti opportunistici. Questa teoria ha avuto un grande successo nella scienza economica. La teoria di Williamson ha, però, alcuni difetti tipici della scienza economica neoclassica. Gli individui sono considerati come atomi razionali che hanno esclusivamente comportamenti opportunistici: in questo modo l’economia elimina di netto una visione dello scambio che si basa su i rapporti sociali. Granovetter, importante sociologo dell’economia, riprende la nozione di embeddedness eleborata da Karl Polanyi per spiegare come gli scambi di mercato siano anch’essi delle relazioni sociali che sono espressione di istituzioni che sono intrisicamente “sociali”.

L’approccio neo-istituzionale ha molti dei difetti che ho criticato nel mio articolo precedente: una pericolosa distanza del modello dalla realtà.  Il fatto che a Williamson venga riconosciuto solo ora il premio nobel dopo molti decenni dalla formulazione delle sue teorie è certamente un fatto atipico.

A voi il giudizio!

Two experts in theories of economic governance win Nobel Prize award a year after regulatory lapses led to global meltdown in financial markets.

Elinor Ostrom & Oliver E. Williamson two American economists, expert in economic governance jointly won the 2009 Nobel Prize in economics early Monday.

Elinor Ostrom,is a professor at Indiana University, and Oliver E. Williamson,is a retired professor at the University of California-Berkeley,both will share the Nobel prize.

The Nobel committee said….see on-http://technoclips.blogspot.com/2009/10/nobel-prize-economics.html