New York - Nobel laureate Oliver Williamson may not be widely known by the general public, but his theories have been studied by generations of economic and finance students. Williamson of the University of California at Berkeley was awarded the prize Monday for his research of economic governance along with Elinor Ostrom, a professor at Indiana University. The two laureates were to equally share the prize worth 10 million kronor (1.4 million dollars).
Many economists and the economy itself rely on the 77-year-old economist, whose work builds bridges between the field and the social sciences. He studies how organizations are created and and their influence on the economy.
He "has done a lot for companies to better understand when it's best to purchase goods and services from the outside versus produce them in-house," Richard Friberg, professor of economics at the Stockholm School of Economics, told Bloomberg financial news.
Williamson was born in the state of Wisconsin and is now a professor emeritus at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1988. He earned his doctorate in 1963 from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
