US | Elinor Ostrom First Woman to Win Nobel in Economics Dead at 78 Elinor Ostrom's work showed how citizens could manage natural resources By Newser Editors and Wire Services Posted Jun 12, 2012 11:50 AM CDT Copied Elinor Ostrom poses for a portrait in Bloomington, Indiana, after becoming the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, in this Oct. 12, 2009, file photo. (AJ MAST) Elinor Ostrom, an Indiana University professor of political science and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in economics, died of cancer this morning at age 78, a university spokesman announced today. Ostrom shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for economics with Oliver Williamson from the University of California Berkeley. They were honored for analyzing the rules by which people exercise authority in companies and economic systems. "Indiana University has lost an irreplaceable and magnificent treasure," the university's president said. "Throughout her lifetime, Lin has brought distinction to the university though her groundbreaking work." Ostrom's research demonstrated how common resources—forests, fisheries, oil fields, or grazing lands—can be managed successfully by the people who use them, rather than by governments or private companies. "What we have ignored is what citizens can do," she said when accepting her prize, "versus just having somebody in Washington ... make a rule." Read These Next Minneapolis shooter had a plan—and grievances. Police chief releases details in Annunciation Church shooting. Disturbing details are emerging about the Minneapolis shooter. Jay Cutler can't avoid jail in DUI case. Report an error