Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems

Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems and Launch of LKYSPP-IWP Asia Water Governance Index
By: Prof. Elinor Ostrom
Li Ka Shing Eminent Visitor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy
Distinguished Professor, Indiana University, Bloomington and
Nobel Memorial Prize Laureate in 2009 (Economic Sciences)

Date: Friday, 20 August 2010
Time: 5.15 p.m. - 6.30 p.m.
Venue: Level 3, Auditorium
Block B, Faculty of Law, NUS Bukit Timah Campus
469G Bukit Timah Road Singapore 259776

SYNOPSIS
Contemporary research on the outcomes of diverse institutional arrangements for governing common-pool resources (CPRs) and public goods at multiple scales builds on classical economic theory while developing new theory to explain phenomena that do not fit in a dichotomous world of "the market" and "the state". Scholars are slowly shifting from positioning simple systems to using more complex frameworks, theories, and models to understand the diversity of puzzles and problems facing humans interacting in contemporary societies. The humans we study have complex motivational structures and establish diverse private-for-profit, governmental, and community institutional arrangements that operate at multiple scales to generate productive and innovative as well as destructive and perverse outcomes (Douglass C. North 1990, 2005). In this lecture, I will describe the intellectual journey that I have taken the last half century from when I began graduate studies in the late 1950s.

Category:

Education