Elinor Ostrom was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 2009, 3 years before her death in 2012 at the age of 78. While she remains one of only two women to be awarded the prize (the other being Esther Duflo, who won in 2019), it is also notable that she is one of a small number of recipients of the prize not to be an economist, but instead a political scientist (mathematicians and psychologists have notably also won the award).
Elinor ‘Lin’ Ostrom was born in post-depression Los Angeles in 1933, the first in her family to attend university. Her father was a set designer for the Hollywood Bowl and her mother was a musician. Her parents separated when she was young and it is clear that the family were not at all affluent.
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