Premio Nobel de Economía

El Premio Nobel de Economía 2009

El pasado 12 de octubre se dio a conocer el Premio Nobel de Economía 2009, aunque los premios se entregarán el 10 de diciembre, aniversario de la muerte del fundador, Alfred Nobel. El premio consiste en 10 millones de coronas suecas (casi un millón de euros) como recompensa por sus trabajos.

Alfred Nobel

Este año, se entregó por primera vez a una mujer, la estadounidense Elinor Ostrom de forma compartida con su compatriota Oliver E. Williamson; ambos catedráticos tienen trabajos en materia de gobierno económico.

Ambos economistas se han destacado por sus estudios y teorías sobre la gestión gubernamental de la economía, y han desarrollado teorías separadas que han contribuido notablemente al entendimiento de la misma, así como de la política económica y los límites de las empresas
Este premio hace que se tome en consideración el campo de la Nueva Economía Institucional, los estudios sobre la acción colectiva, la evolución de instituciones y su supervivencia a largo plazo. La academia marca de esta forma la tendencia, la necesidad de reformas en las instituciones evidenciadas por una estructura, organización y esquemas no adecuados al actual entorno mundial.

Los puntos que son relevantes en este sentido y que marcarán muy probablemente la pauta a seguir de los nuevos economistas son:

-La nueva economía institucional, la cual estudia la acción colectiva, la evolución de instituciones y su supervivencia a largo plazo.

-El llamado Nuevo Institucionalismo Económico, agrupando corrientes y programas de investigación diversos pero interrelacionados, los cuales se han configurado en el último decenio como el nuevo paradigma dominante en el pensamiento económico. Este Nuevo Institucionalismo ofrece una alternativa metodológica a los viejos marginalismos y keynesianismos, a la economía de los equilibrios estáticos y de la formalización de modelos abstractos. En vez de comparar la realidad con óptimos perfectos, trata de analizar instituciones alternativas, subóptimas pero accesibles y realizables.

-El papel central en este nuevo programa de investigación lo tiene el concepto de institución económica en su sentido amplio: las normas implícitas o explícitas que regulan la adopción de decisiones por los individuos y que limitan, voluntaria o involuntariamente, la capacidad de elegir.

Trabajos de Elinor Ostrom

Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice, with Amy R. Poteete and Marco A. Janssen. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming May 2010).

Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, edited with Charlotte Hess (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007).

Linking the Formal and Informal Economy: Concepts and Policies, edited with Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis and Ravi Kanbur (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006; paperback published in 2007).

Understanding Institutional Diversity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).

The Samaritan's Dilemma: The Political Economy of Development Aid, with Clark Gibson, Krister Andersson, and Sujai Shivakumar (Oxford University Press, 2005).

Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Human-Environment Interactions in Forest Ecosystems, edited with Emilio Moran (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).

Asian Irrigation in Transition: Responding to Challenges, edited with Ganesh Shivakoti, Douglas Vermillion, Wai Fung Lam, Ujjwal Pradhan, and Robert Yoder (New Delhi, India: Sage, 2005).

Foundations of Social Capital, edited with T. K. Ahn (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2003).

The Commons in the New Millennium: Challenges and Adaptations, edited with Nives Dolšak (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).

Trust and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons from Experimental Research, edited with James Walker (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003).

The Drama of the Commons, edited with Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolšak, Paul C. Stern, Susan Stonich, and Elke Weber. Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change (Washington, DC: National Research Council, National Academy Press, 2002)

Improving Irrigation Governance and Management in Nepal, edited with Ganesh Shivakoti (Oakland, CA: ICS Press, 2002).

Protecting the Commons: A Framework for Resource Management in the Americas, edited with Joanna Burger, Richard B. Norgaard, David Policansky, and Bernard D. Goldstein (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001).

Institutions, Ecosystems, and Sustainability, edited with Robert Costanza, Bobbi Low, and James Wilson (Boca Raton, FL: Lewis Publishers, 2001).

People and Forests: Communities, Institutions, and Governance, edited with Clark Gibson and Margaret A. McKean (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000).

Selected Journal Articles and Chapters in Books:

“A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change.” Policy Research Working Paper No. 5095. Background paper to the 2010 World Development Report. Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2009.

“Connectivity and the Governance of Multilevel Social-Ecological Systems: The Role of Social Capital” (with Eduardo Brondizio and Oran Young). Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34 (November 2009): 253–78.

“The Contribution of Community Institutions to Environmental Problem-Solving.” In Governing the Environment: Salient Institutional Issues, ed. Albert Breton, Giorgio Brosio, Silvana Dalmazzone, and Giovanna Garrone, 87–112. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2009.

“Beyond the Tragedy of the Commons” (with Xavier Basurto). Economia delle fonti di energia e dell’ambiente 52(1) (October 2009): 35–60.

“Governance and Institutions.” In The Princeton Guide to Ecology, ed. Simon A. Levin, 748–53. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
“A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems.” Science 325(5939) (July 24, 2009): 419–22.

“Building Trust to Solve Commons Dilemmas: Taking Small Steps to Test an Evolving Theory of Collective Action.” In Games, Groups, and the Global Good, ed. Simon Levin, 207–28. New York: Springer, 2009.

“Analyzing the Dynamic Complexity of Development Interventions: Lessons from an Irrigation Experiment in Nepal” (with Wai Fung Lam). Policy Sciences, OnlineFirst May 5, 2009, http://www.springerlink.com/content/l174382165v62868/
“Unresolved Questions of the Social Sciences.” Tvärsnitt 2/09 (2009): 6–8. (in Swedish).

“Polycentric Systems as One Approach to Solving Collective-Action Problems.” In Climate Change and Sustainable Development: New Challenges for Poverty Reduction, ed. Mohamed Salih, 17–35. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2009.

“Design Principles of Robust Property Rights Institutions: What Have We Learned?” In Property Rights and Land Policies, ed. Gregory K. Ingram and Yu-Hung Hong, 25–51. Cambridge, MA: Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2009.

“The Meaning of Social Capital and Its Link to Collective Action” (with T. K. Ahn). In Handbook of Social Capital: The Troika of Sociology, Political Science and Economics, ed. Gert T. Svendsen and Gunnar L. Svendsen, 17–35. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2009.

“Trust in Private and Common Property Experiments” (with James Cox, James Walker, Antonio Jamie Castillo, Eric Coleman, Robert Holahan, Michael Schoon, and Brian Steed). Southern Economic Journal 75(4) (April 2009): 957–75.

“Gemeingütermanagement—eine Perspektive für bürgerschaftliches Engagement” [Governing a Commons from a Citizen’s Perspective]. In Wem gehört die Welt? Zur Wiederentdeckung der Gemeingüter, ed. Silke Helfrich, 218–228. München: Oekom Verlag, 2009.

“Commons.” In The Oxford Companion to Global Change, ed. David Cuff and Andrew Goudie. Oxford University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference Online.

“What is Social Capital?” In Social Capital: Reaching Out, Reaching In, ed. Viva Bartkus and James Davis, 17–38. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2009.

“Engaging with Impossibilities and Possibilities.” In Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen, Volume II: Society, Institutions, and Development, ed. Kaushik Basu and Ravi Kanbur, 522–41. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

“Top-Down Solutions: Looking Up from East Africa’s Rangelands” (with Esther Mwangi). Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 51(1) (January/February 2009): 34–44.

“A Century of Institutions and Ecology in East Africa’s Rangelands: Linking Institutional Robustness with Ecological Resilience of Kenya’s Maasailand” (with Esther Mwangi). In Institutions and Sustainability: Political Economy of Agriculture and the Environment—Essays in Honour of Konrad Hagedorn, ed. Volker Beckmann and Martina Padmanabhan, 195–221. New York: Springer, 2009.

Trabajos de Oliver E. Williamson

The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting, The Free Press, New York, 1985; translated into Spanish by Eduardo L. Suarez and reprinted by Fondo Cultura Economica, 1989; translated into Italian by Margherita Turvani, 1987; translated into German and reprinted by J.C.B. Mohr, 1990; translated into Russian by Valery Katkalo et al. and published by Lenizdat, 1995; translated into French by Regis Coeurderoy aand Emmanvelle Mainant and published by InterEditions, 1994; translated into Polish and published by Polish Scientific Publishers, 1998; translated into Ukrainian and published by ARTEC, 2000.

The Mechanisms of Governance, Oxford University Press, 1996; translated into Italian by Margherita Turvani, and reprinted by Franco Angeli, 1998; translated into Chinese by Chien Wang et al. and reprinted by China Social Sciences Publishing House, 2001.

Co‑editor (with Sidney Winter) and contributor, The Nature of the Firm, Oxford University Press, New York, 1991; translated into Russian and Ukrainian and published by A.Sk. Publishing Company, 2000.

Co‑editor and contributor, Transaction Cost Economics, Vols. I and II, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., Brookfield, VT, 1995.