The 2009 Nobel Prize for Economics has been jointly awarded to the American economists Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson for their work in economic governance.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said that the SwFr10 million (£880,000) award was given to Mr Williamson, in recognition of his theory on corporate conflict resolution, while Ms Ostrom was rewarded for showing how common property can be managed by user associations. She is the first woman to win the prize since it was founded in 1968.

"Over the last three decades, these seminal contributions have advanced economic governance research from the fringe to the forefront of scientific attention," the committee said in its statement.

Mr Williamson, 78, is currently Edgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business.

Ms Ostrom, also in her 70s, is the Arthur F Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington.

Last year, the Nobel economics prize was awarded to Paul Krugman, a Princeton University scholar who was hostile towards the Bush administration.

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