The 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Elinor Ostrom for her work on the relationship between human cooperation and environmental sustainability. Ostrom’s research applied concepts from mathematical cooperative game theory to observations of resource management in African and Asian communities.

. . . Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, shared with Oliver Williamson, is to be welcomed and celebrated . . . there is much reason to be pleased with the Nobel committee’s decision. The planet urgently needs cooperation, not conflict, in resolving compelling issues such as water shortages and climate change, and in safeguarding our common heritage. Elinor Ostom’s work provides us with the optimism and assurance that this is possible.

– Lyla Mehta and Melissa Leach
Blog, The STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability, Institute of Development Studies, UK)