WILLIAMSON'S ECONOMIC REVIEW

Williamson's Economic Review



Williamson's Economic Review

Question 1

There were hundred people in Haas School of business which included faculty members, support staff and the students when Professor Oliver Williamson won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. He shared the prize with Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. They both were appreciated for their contribution towards the economic governance. This was the 5th Nobel Prize for University of California in the field of Economics and it was the 21st in fields like literature, physics and chemistry. (Joskow, 2008, 35)

Williamson is one of the world's most cited economists. He even told during the Prize Distribution that he would describe himself as a diligent teacher and described his students as tolerant who always worked hard to do well in their studies. The work of Williamson involved a wide range of disciplines which he marked in order to check that whether the different organizational structure for markets and institutions affect the economic activities or not. He was given the credit for "New Institutional Economics," which stressed the value of formal institutions and even the informal institutions such as social norms and the transaction costs which are affected as a result. The work of Williamson was described as a combination of social science with theoretical economic theory. (Klein, 2008, 20)

The dean of Haas School, Dean Rich Lyons, even appreciated the efforts of Williamson towards the field of economics. He said that he can never match the efforts of Williamson no matter how much he will try. He was very proud of the Williamson's efforts. Williamson hoped that whatever efforts he has made towards the field of Economics, it will bring lot of advantages to this field as the concepts will become easier for the people to understand and all the students who are going to specialize in this field would have bright scope for the future. The chancellor of University of California Berkeley Robert J. Birgeneau even congratulated Williamson on the well-deserved honor for his groundbreaking work in the field of economics. The award which Williamson received also highlighted the excellence of the faculty that stays at the UC Berkeley and the contribution it has made towards the country and the World. (Mullin, 1997, 74)

There was another professor, Kaiser, at the Haas School and also taught economics in University of California Berkeley's College of Letters and Science. He even had lots of contributions towards the field of economics. After Williamson, he is appreciated a lot for his hard work towards the field of economics and he even worked on various literatures regarding the subject transaction cost of economics. There were lots of economics books which were written by Williamson. The two famous books which were written by Williamson were Markets and Hierarchies: Analysis and Antitrust Implications (1975), and 10 years later, The Economic Institutions of Capitalism: Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting. These books were even regarded as classic piece of economics as well. The latter one is the most frequently cited work ...