MIT alum garners economics nobel
Oliver E. Williamson '55, an economist whose work describing the role of corporations within free markets has been widely influential, was named a co-winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics today. In granting the award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Williamson "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm." His co-winner, Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, is a professor of political science at Indiana University, and the first woman to win an economics Nobel. Williamson is Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of California, Berkeley. His most important work explains how large corporations emerge and survive because they are efficient: for instance, corporations can ease transactions in complicated markets, such as the energy sector, often by reducing the costs associated with negotiations. That analysis, the Academy stated, is important because it shows how the activities...