Harold Demsetz, an emeritus professor of business economics at UCLA, has won the Elinor Ostrom Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of New Institutional Economics. The award is named for UCLA alumna Elinor Ostrom, who in 2009 became the fifth UCLA graduate to win a Nobel Prize and the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
The award, given every two years to an individual who makes pertinent and lasting contributions to the fields of institutional and organizational economics, will be conferred upon Demsetz on June 20 during the society's annual meeting at Harvard University.
Demsetz focuses on issues of monopoly and competition, and the economics of the firm and public policy. He is the author of numerous articles and five books, most recently "From Economic Man to Economic System: Essays on Human Behavior and the Institutions of Capitalism" (Cambridge University Press, 2009 and 2011). He is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has held leadership positions in the Mont Perelin Society and Western Economics Association International. Demsetz has received honors from UCLA, Drexel University and Northwestern University, among many others.
Demsetz joined UCLA in 1958, chaired the department of economics from 1978 to 1980 and held the positions of director of the UCLA Business Economics program and Arthur Anderson UCLA Alumni Chair in Business Economics for more than 10 years.
