**Elinor Ostrom has become the first woman to win the Nobel prize for economics since it began in 1968.**Ms Ostrom won the prize with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their work in economic governance.
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is the last of the six Nobel prizes announced this year. Since 1980, it has gone to Americans 24 times.
Earlier this month, US President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize - though this aroused some controversy.
The economics prize was not among the original awards created in 1968 by the Swedish central bank in Alfred Nobel’s memory.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Ostrom, who teaches at Indiana University, “for her analysis of economic governance,” saying her work had demonstrated how common property can be successfully managed by groups using it.
Williamson, the academy said, developed a theory where business firms serve as structures for conflict resolution.
“Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention,” the academy said.
Last year, American academic Paul Krugman won the prize, in recognition of his analysis of trade patterns and where economic activity takes place.