Washington – Senator Evan Bayh today congratulated Hoosier professor Elinor Ostrom for winning the Nobel Prize in economics.  Ostrom, a professor of economics at Indiana University (IU) in Bloomington, is the first woman to win the prize in economics in the 41-year history of the prestigious award.

“Today is a proud day for Professor Ostrom and a proud day for Indiana University” Senator Bayh said.  “I congratulate Professor Ostrom for winning the Nobel Prize, a historic recognition for her lifetime of academic achievement and trailblazing work in the field of economics.” 

The Nobel Prize recognizes her analysis of economic governance.  This included her challenge to the “tragedy of the commons,” a theory which held that people will inevitably destroy shared finite resources.  Her work studied water politics in Southern California, as well as the collective action of lobstermen in Maine, as examples of people working together without government regulation to preserve a shared resource.     

An IU faculty member since 1965, Ostrom co-founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis with her husband, Vincent Ostrom, in 1973.  She served as president of the Public Choice Society from 1982-1984 and as president of the American Political Science Association from 1996-1997.  In 1980, she became the first woman to chair the IU Department of Political Science.

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