Michael Giberson
YES! magazine presents an interview with Elinor Ostrom, “The Woman Who Just Might Save the Planet and Our Pocketbooks.” The sub-head teaser – “What if our economy was not built on competition?” – is a little over-heated. Nothing in Ostrom work, so far as I know, is opposed to competition. Rather, in the work for which she is now famous, she’s all about understanding cooperation in the face of common pool resource problems. But don’t let the framing of the article put you off if you are looking for an easy and very brief introduction to Ostrom and her ideas.
Other interviews with Ostrom, for those who want more:
- Nobelprize.org, two video interviews with Ostrom,one jointly with Oliver Williamson and the other a roundtable discussion with other 2009 Nobel prizewinners, (December 2009) .
- Paul Dragos Alicia, “Rethinking institutional analysis: Interviews with Vincent and Elinor Ostrom,” (2003).
- Bigthink.com: “Big Think interview with Elinor Ostrom,” (November 2009).
HT to Marginal Revolution for the YES! magazine link.
I run Win 2K and Firefox 3.6.2, clicking the first link crashed my computer. I had to open the page in IE6. YMMV.