Elinor Ostrom
Education
Ph.D., UCLA, 1965
Professional Experience
Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1991-present
President, American Political Science Association, 1996-97
Member, Committee on National Urban Policy, National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council, 1985-88
President, Midwest Political Science Association, 1984-85
President, Public Choice Society, 1982-84
Vice president, American Political Science Association, 1975-76
Research Interests
How do we integrate the research findings in cognitive science into a workable set of models for exploring and explaining human choices in various institutional settings, including: social dilemmas, collective choice arenas, bureaucracies, and complex multitiered public economies?
How do institutions generate the information that individuals need to make decisions?
What biases or lack of biases are built into various ways of making collective decisions?
How are diverse preferences exaggerated or modified by interaction within diverse institutional structures?
Representative Publications
Ostrom, Elinor (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, Elinor (1992). Crafting Institutions for Self-Gover ning Irrigation Systems.
San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies.
Ostrom, E., Schroeder, L. & Wynne, S. (1993). Institutional Incentives and Sustainable Development: Infrastructure Policies in Perspective.
Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Ostrom, E., Walker, J. & Gardner, R. (1994). Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.