Nobel Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1980

I was born into an upper-middle class family in a village in the South of Sweden in April, 1899. It was a large family with seven children, a large house and a home which was very hospitable and open to friends and relatives. There was a private school which was not very particular about the...

Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1983

From one point of view my studying economics was the result of accidental blind chance. Prior to graduating from high school I was born again at 8:00 a.m., January 2, 1932, when I first walked into the University of Chicago lecture hall. That day's lecture was on Malthus's theory that human...

Prize Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 8, 1981

Elinor Ostrom delivered her Prize Lecture on 8 December 2009 at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. She was introduced by Professor Bertil Holmlund, Chairman of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee.

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1916. My father, an electrical engineer, had come to the United States in 1903 after earning his engineering diploma at the Technische Hochschule of Darmstadt, Germany. He was an inventor and designer of electrical control gear, later also a patent...

I was born in 1921 in Calais, France, the son of Camille Debreu and Fernande (née Decharne) Debreu. My father was the business partner of my maternal grandfather in lace manufacturing, a traditional industry in Calais. My paternal grandfather managed, until his retirement, the printing plant he...

Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, December 11, 1971

I was born in London on 30 August 1913, the only child of Gilbert and Elsie Stone. My school days were spent first at Cliveden Place Preparatory School and then at Westminster School, which I attended from 1926 to 1930. At Westminster, I was on the classical side: my father, who was a barrister,...