Stockholm - US researchers Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson on Monday were named winners of the 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced. Ostrom, born 1933, became the first woman to win the economics prize since it was created in 1968. There were 62 previous winners.
The Academy said research by Ostrom and Williamson had showed how "economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization."
Ostrom of Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, was cited "for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons," while Williamson of the University of California at Berkeley, California, was cited for "his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm."
The two laureates were to equally share the prize worth 10 million kronor (1.4 million dollars).
Ostrom's work indicated how economic transactions can - in addition to markets - take place in firms, associations, households and agencies.
Economics professor Mats Persson of Stockholm University told Swedish radio news that Ostrom's research gave "some hope" as she presented "a new view" on how human societies deal with limited natural resources.
Traditional economic theory has suggested that if there is not a clearly defined owner, natural resources including pastures, woods and fish stocks are often over-utilized. Taxes or quotas are among the solutions presented to tackle this.
Ostrom's rearch indicated that "in some cases, where markets don't work, people find other solutions that work so that these natural resources are not depleted," Persson said.
The grass plains of Mongolia and neighbouring parts of China and Russia were mentioned as an example for Ostrom's theory.
Satellite imagery has indicated that in Mongolia where traditional group-based systems of grazing remained into the 1990s and the land suffered less degradation compared to neighbouring areas in Russia and China where state-owned collectives and later private ownership was introduced.
Williamson, 77, had shown how businesses "serve as structures for conflict resolution," the Academy said.
The prize - formally called The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel - last year was awarded to Paul Krugman of the United States.
Citizens of the US have dominated the economics prize, which was not one of the orginal Nobel prizes endowed by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite.
The economics prize like the Nobel prizes for medicine, physics, chemistry and literature are presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's 1896 death in San Remo, Italy.
The Nobel Prize for Peace is presented December 10 in Oslo, Norway.
