Elinor Ostrom Prize

A prize of £1000 is awarded each year for the best full-length article published in the Journal of Institutional Economics in the preceding calendar year.

Each annual prize competition will be judged by an international committee of experts in the field of institutional research. The award is funded by Millennium Economics Ltd. Approval to use the Ostrom name has been obtained from the Indiana University Foundation.

For more information including shortlisted articles and prize committee members, visit the JOIE prizes and awards page. 

2024 Elinor Ostrom Prize - Announcement

Jon Murphy (2023), “Cascading Expert Failure“,  JOIE 19(1): 52-69. 

The prize award has been increased to £1500.

2023 Elinor Ostrom Prize - Announcement

Adam Crepelle, Tate Fegley, Ilia Murtazashvili & Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, “Community Policing on American Indian Reservations: A Preliminary Investigation”, JOIE 18(5): 843-860.

2022 Elinor Ostrom Prize -  Announcement

Peter Grajzl “A Machine-Learning History of English Caselaw and Legal Ideas Prior to the Industrial Revolution I: Generating and Interpreting the Estimates",  JOIE 17(1): 1-19

Peter Murrell “A Machine-Learning History of English Caselaw and Legal Ideas Prior to the Industrial Revolution II: Applications“, JOIE 17(2): 201-216

2021 Elinor Ostrom Prize - Announcement 

Abigail Devereaux and Linan Peng, “Give Us a Little Social Credit: To Design or To Discover Personal Ratings in the Era of Big Data", JOIE 16(3): 369-387.

David Ciepley, “The Anglo-American Misconception of Stockholders as ‘Owners’ and ‘Members’: Its Origins and Consequences”, JOIE 16(5): 623-642.

The award was announced on 7 August 2021, on Elinor Ostrom's birthday.

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner 2020

Congratulations to Elise Brezis and Joël Cariolle for winning the 2020 Ostrom Prize for their article “The revolving door, state connections, & inequality of influence in the financial sector” published in Volume 15, Issue 4 of Journal of Institutional Economics.

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winners 2019

Robbert Maseland, “Is Colonialism History? The Declining Impact of Colonial Legacies on African Institutional and Economic Development”, JOIE 14(2): 258-287. 

Colin Harris, “Institutional Solutions to Free-Riding in Peer-to-Peer Networks: A Case Study of Online Pirate Communities”, JOIE 14(5): 901-924. 

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner 2018

Avner Greif and Joel Mokyr, “Cognitive Rules, Institutions and Economic Growth: Douglass North and Beyond”, JOIE 13(1): 25-52.

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner 2017

Agnès Labrousse, “Not By Technique Alone: A Methodological Comparison of Development Analysis with Esther Duflo and Elinor Ostrom”, JOIE 12(2): 277-303.

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner 2016

Roger Koppl, Stuart Kauffman, Teppo Felin, and Giuseppe Longo (2015), “Economics for a Creative World", JOIE 11(1): 1-31.

Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner 2015

Daniel H. Cole, Graham Epstein and Michael McGinnis (2014), “Digging Deeper into Hardin’s Pasture: The Complex Institutional Structure of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’", JOIE 10(3): 353-369.

Inaugural 2014 Elinor Ostrom Prize - Winner

Fabio Landini, "Institutional Change and Information Production", JOIE 9(3): 257-284.