Peter Boettke on Elinor Ostrom, Vincent Ostrom, and the Bloomington School

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🗓️ 30 November 2009

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

Peter Boettke of George Mason University and author of Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (co-authored with Paul Dragos Aligica), talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the Bloomington School--the political economy of Elinor Ostrom (2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics), Vincent Ostrom, and their students and colleagues at Indiana University. The discussion begins with the empirical approach of Elinor Ostrom and others who have studied the myriad of ways that actual communities have avoided the tragedy of commons. Boettke emphasizes the distinction between privatization vs. informal norms and cultural rules that prevent overuse. The conversation also looks at urban development and the benefits and costs of multiple municipalities vs. a single, large city. Throughout, Boettke embeds the conversation in the Ostroms' interest in how the citizenry can be self-governing and the challenges of implementing local knowledge.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:12.5	I'm your host Russ Roberts of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover
0:17.3	Institution.
0:18.7	Our website is econtalk.org, where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast,
0:25.8	and find links to other information related to today's conversation.
0:29.9	Our email address is mailadicontalk.org.
0:33.6	We'd love to hear from you.
0:35.4	Today is November 24, 2009, and my guest is Pete Betke of George Mason University.
0:43.6	His latest book, authored with Paul Drago's Allegica, is Challenging Institutional Analysis
0:49.6	and Development, the Bloomington School.
0:51.7	Pete, welcome back to Econ Talk.
0:53.2	Thanks Russ.
0:54.2	I mean, this year's Nobel Prize in Economics went to Eleanor Ostrom of Indiana University.
0:58.7	People know something about her work on the tragedy of the commons, but as you point
1:02.4	out in your book, her work is part of a much larger research project.
1:06.0	What's distinctive about those ideas?
1:08.2	Well, I think, well, there's a variety of things that we try to articulate in the book,
1:13.3	but the big issue, I think, to get at this is to look at the power of civil society and
1:19.1	self-governing citizenry, what are the characteristics of a self-governing citizenry, and how actually
1:25.2	do people engage in self-regulation and self-government?
1:30.0	And go and explain that in more detail.
1:32.1	What do you mean by civil society?
	...

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