Ellinor Ostrom became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics! I'm doing a Snoopy dance in her honor, even though she sort of snuck into the field from political science.
She shares the prize with Oliver Williamson. What the two share is a focus on nonmarket solutions in economics:
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences was awarded on Monday to two American social scientists for their work in describing the numerous relationships within a company or among companies and individuals that shape market behavior.
The prize committee cited Elinor Ostrom, 76, at Indiana University, and Oliver E. Williamson, 77, at the University of California, Berkeley, for work done over long careers. Ms. Ostrom is the first woman to receive the economics prize in the 41-year history of the award. She is a political scientist, not an economist, and in honoring her, the judges seemed to suggest that economics should be thought of as an interdisciplinary field rather than a pure science governed by mathematics.
"This award is part of the merging of the social sciences," said Robert Shiller, a Yale University economist. "Economics has been too isolated and too stuck on the view that markets are efficient and self-regulating. It has derailed our thinking."
This award means a lot to young female economists who can now dream further. It made me all weepy, to be honest.