Elinor Ostrom on her Nobel Prize speech
By Ellie Pewett
web posted November 24, 2025
On December 8th, 2009, the late Elinor Ostrom shared the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences with Oliver E. Williamson, and became the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for economics for her groundbreaking work on the management of common resources. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of the world's 100 most influential people. Her work that caused her to win the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences demonstrated that local communities can successfully govern shared resources through self-developed rules and norms, often outperforming government or market-based systems.
Elinor Ostrom (third from the left) with the other 2009 Nobel laureates
Economists often talk about two main ways to solve problems of scarcity — through markets or government intervention. But Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, introduced a third option: us. Her work suggests that people, when given the chance, can cooperate to manage shared resources effectively without top-down control. If you have ever had a group project through school or another activity, you know that sometimes the teacher or adult in charge gives you detailed instructions on how to finish the project. However, every team has their own needs and ways of efficiency. When a team doesn't wait for specific instruction from a teacher or adult and instead creates their own system for completing the task, the project gets finished more easily because the team actually cares. This is the same for economics.
I agree with Ostrom, because when people care about something personally, they act more responsibly and contribute more to the goal. As in the school project example, when the students designed their own plan for how things should work, the project was completed. Another example might be when a student takes initiative and starts picking up trash on the way home from school. That might fire up the environmental club, who begins picking up trash and cleaning more around the outside of the school, and starts a chain reaction of students seeing a problem and coming to a solution. The outcome of this fix to the problem of littering (or trash) was a more direct and efficient approach than a solution the school staff itself could've conducted. People act more quickly and responsibly about something if they actually care about it and want to fix it. In economics, this kind of cooperation is what we call managing a public good, which is something everyone can use but that's easy to overuse if no one takes responsibility. Of course, it doesn't always go perfectly; sometimes people slack off, and I've definitely seen the "free rider problem" when half the group disappears on cleanup day. But that's exactly what makes Ostrom's idea so human and interesting. Cooperation may be messy, but it is possible.
The more you look around, the more you see Ostrom's idea everywhere. Online communities create their own guidelines and professional standards to stay connected and positive. Sports teams develop unspoken codes about fairness and sportsmanship. Even families have their own little systems for chores—in my house, whoever didn't make or help with making dinner has to help clean up and wash the dishes. Ostrom's belief reminds me that economics isn't just about money. It's about how people manage what they share. Her ideas fit perfectly into the real world, where communication and cooperation can sometimes do what laws and governments can't.
Ostrom's belief in people's ability to attain ownership shows the strength of cooperation and shared responsibility. People who experience the consequences of their decisions often make better choices. As I stated earlier in this essay, when people are directly affected by a need, they care more about it and want to help solve the problem. Whether it is cleaning up trash, class projects, or something far greater, her message stays the same. Cooperation works when we trust each other enough to try. In a world that loves top-down control, Ostrom's faith in ordinary people feels refreshingly rebellious, and maybe exactly what economics needs. 
Ellie Pewett is a high school student studying economics this year, and this is her first contribution to Enter Stage Right. (c) 2025 Ellie Pewett
