An amazing economist who didn’t make a lot of noise. She looked, she measured and she thought. None of the inconsequential, high-tech nonsense that plagues the economics profession, just a great social scientist whose work on common property will drive the profession forwards. She drove experimental and institutional economics and (on a personal level) made me rethink the way economic science should be done. One of the greats. (995)
A really massive loss. ‘Governing the Commons’ should be required reading for all economics students. It does two things: first, shows that you can do excellent analysis without a computer. Second, shows that high-quality analysis is very, very difficult; that going right down to the nuts and bolts (or canals and fishing nets) of the problem allows the researcher to speak with so much more authority on high-level issues.
That said, I think she made more noise than you give her credit for. Google Scholar reckons Governing the Commons has almost 14000 citations.
nice summary of her work by vernon smith at http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/12/elinor-ostrom-commons-nobel-economics-opinions-contributors-vernon-l-smith.html
discussed cases where ordinary people with no education and none of the economists’ knowledge of the tragedy of the commons, discover ingenious rules (institutions) for taking the tragedy out of a productive resource they hold in common
A fatal source of disintegration is the inappropriate application of uninformed external authority