Nobel Prize for Economics 2009

Nobel Prize for Economics 2009

Nobel Prize for Economics 2009

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2009

English English (pdf) Swedish Swedish (pdf)

Press Release

12 October 2009

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2009 to

Elinor Ostrom
Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA,

"for her analysis of economic governance, especially the commons"

and

Oliver E. Williamson
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA,

"for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm"

Economic governance: the organization of cooperation

Elinor Ostrom has demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by user associations. Oliver Williamson has developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution. Over the last three decades these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention.

Economic transactions take place not only in markets, but also within firms, associations, households, and agencies. Whereas economic theory has comprehensively illuminated the virtues and limitations of markets, it has traditionally paid less attention to other institutional arrangements. The research of Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson demonstrates that economic analysis can shed light on most forms of social organization.

Elinor Ostrom has challenged the conventional wisdom that common property is poorly managed and should be either regulated by central authorities or privatized. Based on numerous studies of user-managed fish stocks, pastures, woods, lakes, and groundwater basins, Ostrom concludes that the outcomes are, more often than not, better than predicted by standard theories. She observes that resource users frequently develop sophisticated mechanisms for decision-making and rule enforcement to handle conflicts of interest, and she characterizes the rules that promote successful outcomes.

Oliver Williamson has argued that markets and hierarchical organizations, such as firms, represent alternative governance structures which differ in their approaches to resolving conflicts of interest. The drawback of markets is that they often entail haggling and disagreement. The drawback of firms is that authority, which mitigates contention, can be abused. Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent. But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets. A key prediction of Williamson's theory, which has also been supported empirically, is therefore that the propensity of economic agents to conduct their transactions inside the boundaries of a firm increases along with the relationship-specific features of their assets.

Read more about this year's prize

Information for the Public (pdf)

Scientific Background (pdf)

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Links and Further Reading

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Elinor Ostrom, US citizen. Born in 1933 in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Ph.D. in Political Science in 1965 from the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science and Professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, both at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University, Tempe, USA.
www.cogs.indiana.edu/people/homepages/ostrom.html

Oliver E. Williamson, US citizen. Born in 1932 in Superior, WI, USA. Ph.D. in Economics in 1963 from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus of Business, Economics and Law and Professor of the Graduate School, both at the University of California, Berkeley, USA.
www2.haas.berkeley.edu/Faculty/williamson_oliver.aspx

The Prize amount: SEK 10 million, to be shared equally between the Laureates.

Contact: Erik Huss, Press Officer and Editor, phone +46 8 673 95 44, +46 70 673 96 50, erik.huss@kva.se

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, founded in 1739, is an independent organization whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines.

Information for the Public

Information for the Public »

Scientific Background

Scientific Background

Links to other sites

On Elinor Ostrom from Indiana University

Links to other sites

On Oliver E. Williamson from University of California, Berkeley

Nobel Prize for Economics 2009

Nobel Prize for Economics 2009

Nobel Peace Prize 2009

Nobel Peace Prize 2009

Nobel Peace Prize 2009

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009

HE ADMINISTRATION • PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

THE ADMINISTRATION

President Barack Obama

Vice President Joe Biden

First Lady Michelle Obama

Dr. Jill Biden

The Cabinet

White House Staff

Executive Office of the President

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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Barack H. Obama is the 44th President of the United States.

His story is the American story — values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others.

With a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, President Obama was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. He was raised with help from his grandfather, who served in Patton's army, and his grandmother, who worked her way up from the secretarial pool to middle management at a bank.

After working his way through college with the help of scholarships and student loans, President Obama moved to Chicago, where he worked with a group of churches to help rebuild communities devastated by the closure of local steel plants.

He went on to attend law school, where he became the first African—American president of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation, he returned to Chicago to help lead a voter registration drive, teach constitutional law at the University of Chicago, and remain active in his community.

President Obama's years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose. In the Illinois State Senate, he passed the first major ethics reform in 25 years, cut taxes for working families, and expanded health care for children and their parents. As a United States Senator, he reached across the aisle to pass groundbreaking lobbying reform, lock up the world's most dangerous weapons, and bring transparency to government by putting federal spending online.

He was elected the 44th President of the United States on November 4, 2008, and sworn in on January 20, 2009. He and his wife, Michelle, are the proud parents of two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/president_obama/

Profile: Barack Obama

Barack Obama's stirring oratory and easy charm have won him many supporters

Barack Obama made history on 4 November 2008 when he easily defeated Republican rival John McCain to become the first black president of the United States.

He had already broken new ground in his White House campaign, as the first black candidate to become the presidential choice of either major US party.

His stirring oratory, combined with an easy charm, won him supporters in the US and admirers across the globe.

BARACK OBAMA Born 4 Aug 1961 in Hawaii Studied law at Harvard Worked as a civil rights lawyer in Chicago Served in Illinois state senate 1996-2004 Elected to the US Senate in 2004

Critics, however, have started to question whether there is much substance behind his well-crafted statements of good intent.

Domestically, his first year in office has thus far been dominated by his attempts to reform US healthcare amid fierce opposition.

Internationally, much of his focus has been on attempts to achieve new agreements on nuclear disarmament and climate change, with his efforts in these areas yet to bear fruit.

And while there has been some progress on disengagement from Iraq, with US troops withdrawing to their bases as the Iraqi army grows in strength, the military headache of Afghanistan has been growing.

International upbringing

Mr Obama first came to national prominence when he electrified the 2004 Democratic National Convention in a speech about self-reliance and high aspiration.

The son of a Kenyan man and a white woman from Kansas, he emphasised his personal history in a speech reflecting traditional American ideals.

"Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place - America, which stood as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before," he said.

After his landslide US Senate election victory in Illinois a few months later, he became a media darling and one of the most visible figures in Washington, with two best-selling books to his name.

Mr Obama is named after his father, who grew up in Kenya herding goats but gained a scholarship to study in Hawaii.

There the Kenyan met and married Mr Obama's mother, Ann, who was living in Honolulu with her parents.

When Mr Obama was a toddler, his father got a chance to study at Harvard but there was no money for the family to go with him. He later returned to Kenya alone, where he worked as a government economist, and the couple divorced.

Mr Obama has two young daughters with his wife, Michelle

When Mr Obama was six, his mother married an Indonesian man and the family moved to Jakarta.

Although his father and step-father were Muslim, Mr Obama is a Christian and attended secular and Catholic schools during the four years he lived in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country.

He then moved back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and attend school.

Mr Obama went on to study political science at Columbia University in New York, and then moved to Chicago where he spent three years as a community organiser.

In 1988 he left to attend Harvard Law School, where he became the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review.

During the summer vacations from Harvard, Mr Obama returned to Chicago and served internships with law firms.

It was during one such internship that he met the then Michelle Robinson, whom he went on to marry in 1992. The couple have two young daughters, Malia and Sasha.

After Harvard, Mr Obama returned to Chicago to practise civil rights law, representing victims of housing and employment discrimination.

He served in the Illinois state senate from 1996 to 2004, before winning a seat in the US Senate.

On Capitol Hill, Mr Obama established a firmly liberal voting record, but also worked with Republican colleagues on issues such as HIV/Aids-education and prevention.

An early critic of the Iraq war, he spoke out against the prospect of war several months before the March 2003 invasion.

Race

The senator attended the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago for almost two decades but broke away from it in May 2008 after controversial sermons by Trinity preachers hit the headlines.

Mr Obama generated a buzz not often seen in US politics

To many people, Mr Obama seemed to come from nowhere in his bid for the presidency. Although he had served in the Illinois state senate for eight years, it was only in 2004 that he shot to national prominence, with the speech that stirred the Democratic National Convention.

And it was only in the two years leading up to the election that his name, face and story became known beyond America.

The senator clinched the Democratic nomination after a long and gruelling battle against former first lady Hillary Clinton.

In the course of campaigning, Senator Obama broke all records for fundraising, by harnessing the internet to collect huge numbers of small donations, as well as larger sums from corporate donors.

He also demonstrated the ability to gather crowds of 100,000 people or more to his rallies, and to generate a buzz seldom seen in US politics.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3936013.stm

Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2009

Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2009

Congratulations Venkataraman Ramakrishnan
for making our Nation Proud.

Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2009

If you want to listen to the Interview with Sri Venkataraman Ramakrishnan please do click the following link
http://nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1183

Website of the Nobel winner

http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ribo/homepage/ramak/index.html

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan: A profile


For a brief sketch of Ventakaraman Ramakrishnan
Please click on the following site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venkatraman_Ramakrishnan

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan
Born	1952 Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India
Residence	United Kingdom
Citizenship	United States
Nationality	American
Ethnicity	Indian
Fields	Biochemistry and Biophysics and Computational Biology
Institutions	MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England, Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for	Bio-crystallography
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2009).

Venkatraman "Venki" Ramakrishnan (Tamil: வெங்கட்ராமன் ராமகிருஷ்ணன்; born 1952) is a structural biologist at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of the Medical Research Council located in Cambridge, England.^[1] He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.^[2][3] He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath.^[4]

Contents [hide] 1 Early life and education 2 Background and research work 3 Honours 4 References 5 External links

Early life and education

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan was born in 1952 in Chidambaram in Tamil Nadu, India,^[5] where he completed his pre-university studies at Annamalai University.^[6] Later, he obtained his B.Sc. in Physics from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, in 1971 and then his Ph.D. in Physics from Ohio University in 1976.^[7][8][9] He then spent a year taking classes in biology at the University of California, San Diego while transitioning from theoretical physics to biology.^[10]

Background and research work

Venkatraman Ramakrishnan has published more than 95 research papers, the earliest being in 1977.^[11] In 2000, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan's laboratory determined the structure of the 30S subunit of the ribosome and its complexes with several antibiotics.^[12] He also published three papers about his ribosome research in the August 26, 1999, and September 21, 2000, issues of the journal Nature.^[7] This was followed by studies that provided structural insights into the mechanism that ensures the fidelity of protein biosynthesis. More recently, his laboratory has determined the atomic structure of the whole ribosome in complex with its tRNA and mRNA ligands. Ramakrishnan is also known for his past work on histone and chromatin structure.

Ramakrishnan is known for his work on the determination of the three-dimensional structure of the small ribosomal subunit and its complexes with substrates and antibiotics, which has shed light on the mechanism that ensures the fidelity of protein synthesis, and for his work on the structures of chromatin-related proteins.^[13]

Honours

Ramakrishnan was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Thomas A. Steitz and Ada Yonath.^[14] Ramakrishnan will be awarded the Nobel Prize along with one-third of the total prize money of 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.4 million), in a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10.^[15] Thus, he became the seventh Indian or person of Indian origin to win the Nobel Prize.^[7] Official Nobel Foundation website telephone interview audio with him is available here. ^[16] He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, and a member of EMBO and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

References

1. ^ "Venki Ramakrishnan". Laboratory of Molecular Biology. 2004. http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ramak/. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
2. ^ "New Trinity Fellows". The Fountain, Trinity College Newsletter. https://alumni.trin.cam.ac.uk/design/pdfs/Fountainspring09.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
3. ^ "Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan". Trinity College, Cambridge. 2008. http://www.trin.cam.ac.uk/index.php?pageid=176&conid=350. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
4. ^ Abadjiev, Stanislav P. (7 October 2009). "The Nobel Prize in chemistry is going to Ramakrishnan, Steitz, Yonath". Science Centric. http://www.sciencecentric.com/news/article.php?q=09100741-the-nobel-prize-chemistry-is-going-ramakrishnan-steitz-yonath. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
5. ^ 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Foundation.
6. ^ Press Trust of India (PTI) (7 October 2009). "Venkatraman's teacher happy over ward's Nobel". Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Venkatramans-teacher-happy-over-wards-Nobel/articleshow/5098759.cms. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Press Trust of India (PTI) (7 October 2009). "Venkatraman Ramakrishnan: A profile". Times of India. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Venkatraman-Ramakrishnan-A-profile/articleshow/5098151.cms. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
8. ^ "FACTBOX: Nobel chemistry prize - Who are the winners?". http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5962EE20091007. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
9. ^ Sonwalkar, Prasun (October 8, 2009). "Venkatraman Ramakrishnan wins Nobel for Chemistry". Press Trust of India (PTI). http://www.ptinews.com/news/318589_Venkatraman-Ramakrishnan-wins-Nobel-for-Chemistry. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
10. ^ Associated Press (7 October 2009). "Profile: Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan". Indian Express. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/profile-dr-venkatraman-ramakrishnan/526251/. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
11. ^ "Publications (Venki Ramakrishnan)". Laboratory of Molecular Biology. http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ribo/homepage/ramak/ramak_publications.html. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
12. ^ "Welcome to the Ramakrishnan Lab web page". Laboratory of Molecular Biology. 2004. http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/ribo/. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
13. ^ "About the PNAS Member Editor". PNAS. http://nrc88.nas.edu/pnas_search/memberDetails.aspx?ctID=20004810. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
14. ^ "All Nobel Laureates in Chemistry". Nobel Foundation. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/index.html. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
15. ^ Overbye, Dennis (October 7, 2009). "Three Win Nobel for Ribosome Research". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/science/08nobel.html?em. Retrieved 2009-10-07.
16. ^ "Venkatraman Ramakrishnan Audio Interview". Nobel Website. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2009/ramakrishnan-interview.html. Retrieved 2009-10-07.

External links

• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, homepage at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
• Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, profile from Times Of India

Nobel Prize 2009 - Medicine

Nobel Prize for Medicine 2009