When it was announced recently that Dr. Elinor Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics, cheers went up at the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics, and Government at Saint Vincent College because she was a distinguished guest speaker in the school’s Economic Education Series in 2007 and an academic colleague of Dr. Andrew Herr, associate professor of economics at Saint Vincent.

“She was on my dissertation committee when I was pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Indiana at Bloomington,” Dr. Herr explained. “I met her in 1995 and we started working together on a couple of projects. Eventually, that turned into two co-authored papers that came out after I graduated.”

Dr. Ostrom spoke at Saint Vincent on February 7, 2007 – the 25th anniversary of the Alex G. McKenna Economic Education Series -- on the topic, “Beyond Panaceas: The Importance of Institutional Diversity.” She was the 75th speaker in the series which is sponsored by the Center for Political and Economic Thought at Saint Vincent.

Dr. Ostrom concentrates on natural resource economics and studies how communities have solved the problem of the commons which theorizes that when there’s commonly held property there’s a good chance that people will not be able to manage it correctly.

“She did a lot of field work and showed a lot of examples where communities were able to come together and take care of their resources,” Dr. Herr said. “We did some experimental studies that tried to mimic some of the things she saw out in the field.”

Dr. Herr remembers her as a very dedicated teacher. “She was very good at reading my work and getting feedback right away,” he recalled. “We probably saw each other daily or weekly while I was completing my dissertation. The thing that I always remember about her was getting emails from her at any time of the day or night. I remember thinking, either she’s up real late or up real early – I don’t know which because I got emails from her at 4 o’clock in the morning. She just really loved her work and was very passionate about what she was doing. Her work took precedence over eating, sleeping and a lot of other things for her.”

Dr. Ostrom’s achievement did not come as much of a surprise to Dr. Herr. “I was a little surprised since she is the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics which is a great accomplishment,” Dr. Herr commented. “But I am not surprised in the sense that I think her work deserves the Nobel Prize. It think it’s worthy of that. It’s just that there are so many people who are deserving. I think every year you kind of hold your breath to see who gets it and who doesn’t. I know her name has been mentioned by some people as a possibility so it’s not a complete surprise but I would say that it’s just a great honor for her.”

Dr. Herr noted that Dr. Ostrom never made decisions on a political basis. “She really spent her life’s work figuring out under what circumstance you need some government intervention and under what circumstances government can actually be harmful,” Dr. Herr related. “As communities have come together and found their own solutions you sometimes find that government comes in and replaces home grown solutions with what they believe to be best. When she came to Saint Vincent, she brought a lengthy paper with her that she wanted me to review. I thought it was interesting that after all these years she was still soliciting my feedback. I could not tell you what her political affiliation is. She was more of a political scientist than an economist and yet I really didn’t know where she stood on some of those issues. I think that is to her credit. She was just out there trying to find the truth.”

Dr. Herr said that he learned lessons from Dr. Ostrom that enhance his own classroom performance. “I think I learned from her a couple things,” he said. “The first is just the notion of hard work. She modeled that every single day just by the way she had relationships with her students regardless of how busy she was. She always had time for you and those are things I hopefully attempt to do as well. I attempt to work hard and find time for the students. I also think this notion of seeking the truth and not being swayed by political affiliations are important lessons we should all live by.”

Photo:  Dr. Andrew Herr

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