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Oliver E. Williamson | |
|---|---|
 Williamson in 2009 | |
| Born | Oliver Eaton Williamson (1932-09-27)September 27, 1932 Superior, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Died | May 21, 2020(2020-05-21) (aged 87) Berkeley, California, U.S. |
| Academic background | |
| Education | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS) Stanford University (MBA) Carnegie Mellon University (PhD) |
| Thesis | The economics of discretionary behavior: nonpecuniary objectives in the theory of the firm (1963) |
| Influences | Kenneth Arrow Chester Barnard Ronald Coase Richard Cyert Friedrich Hayek Ian Roderick Macneil Herbert A. Simon John R. Commons |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Microeconomics |
| School or tradition | New Institutional Economics |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley Yale University University of Pennsylvania |
| Awards | John von Neumann Award (1999)Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2009) |
| Website | |
Oliver Eaton Williamson (September 27, 1932 – May 21, 2020) was an Americaneconomist, a professor at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, and recipient of the 2009Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which he shared withElinor Ostrom.[1]
His contributions totransaction cost economics and thetheory of the firm have been influential in thesocial sciences,[2][3][4]law and economics. Williamson described his work as "a blend of soft social science and abstract economic theory".[5]
Oliver "Olly"[4] Williamson was born inSuperior, Wisconsin, on 27 September 1932.[4] He was the son of Sara Lucille (Dunn) and Scott Williamson, both of whom were high school teachers.[4] As a child, Williamson attendedCentral High School in Superior.[6]
Williamson's dual enrollment between Ripon College and MIT[4] earned him his bachelor's degree in management from theMIT Sloan School of Management in 1955. During his time in his undergraduate academic career, his studies in engineering sparked his initial interest in transaction costs.[4] After graduating, he worked as a project engineer forGeneral Electric, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency.[4]
Williamson received anMBA fromStanford University in 1960, and hisPhD fromCarnegie Mellon University, formerly Carnegie Tech,[4] in 1963. His dissertation was titled 'The Economics of Discretionary Behaviour: Managerial Objectives in a Theory of the Firm'.[4] A student ofRonald Coase,Herbert A. Simon andRichard Cyert, he specialized intransaction cost economics.
From 1963 to 1965 he was an assistant professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1965 to 1983 he was a professor at theUniversity of Pennsylvania and from 1983 to 1988, a Gordon B. Tweedy Professor ofEconomics of Law and Organization atYale University. While at Yale, Williamson was a founder ofThe Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization. He held professorships in business administration, economics, and law at theUniversity of California, Berkeley since 1988 and was theEdgar F. Kaiser Professor Emeritus at theHaas School of Business.[7] As aFulbright Distinguished Chair, in 1999 he taught economics at theUniversity of Siena.
Found to be one of the most cited authors in the social sciences,[8] in 2009, he was awarded theNobel Memorial Prize in Economics for "his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm",[9] sharing it withElinor Ostrom. Williamson died on May 21, 2020, in Berkeley, California.[10][11]
By drawing attention at a high theoretical level to equivalences and differences between market and non-market decision-making, management and service provision, Williamson was influential in the 1980s and 1990s debates on the boundaries between thepublic andprivate sectors.
His focus on the costs of transactions led Williamson to distinguish between repeated case-by-case bargaining on the one hand and relationship-specific contracts on the other. For example, the repeated purchasing of coal from aspot market to meet the daily or weekly needs of anelectric utility would represent case-by-case bargaining. But over time, the utility is likely to form ongoing relationships with a specific supplier, and the economics of the relationship-specific dealings will be importantly different, he argued.
Other economists have tested Williamson's transaction-cost theories in empirical contexts. One important example is a paper byPaul L. Joskow, "Contract Duration and Relationship-Specific Investments: Empirical Evidence fromCoalMarkets", inAmerican Economic Review, March 1987. Theincomplete contracts approach to thetheory of the firm andcorporate finance is partly based on the work of Williamson and Coase.[12]
Williamson was credited with the development of the term "information impactedness", which applies in situations of unequal access to information.[13] As he explained inMarkets and Hierarchies, it exists "mainly because of uncertainty andopportunism, thoughbounded rationality is involved as well. It exists when true underlying circumstances relevant to the transaction, or related set of transactions, are known to one or more parties but cannot be costlessly discerned by or displayed for others". Thus, Williamson is to be counted among those who have taken issue with the view that the firm is another type of market, characterized by a nexus of contracts. In his own words: "But to regard the corporation only as a nexus of contracts misses much of what is truly distinctive about this mode of governance".[14][15]
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In 2009, theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences cited Williamson andElinor Ostrom to share the 10-millionSwedish kronor (£910,000; $1.44 million) prize "for his analysis of economic governance, especially the boundaries of the firm".[1] Williamson, in the BBC's paraphrase of the academy's reasoning, "developed a theory where business firms served as structures for conflict resolution".[16]
He met his wife Dolores Celini in 1957, while they both lived in Washington, D.C.[4] They had five children.[4]
For his dedication to the field and his service to the institution, the Haas School of Business at Berkeley established the Williamson Award[4] in honor of Oliver Williamson. This prestigious award is presented to outstanding faculty members who embody Berkeley's four Defining Leadership Principles - Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself.[17] Beginning in fiscal year 2013, the Williamson Award has been presented to the following faculty members:
, accessed 11 October 2020
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including the Nobel Lecture on 8 December 2009Transaction Cost Economics: The Natural ProgressionFrom the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley:
From the University of California, Berkeley:
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| Preceded by | Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 2009 Served alongside:Elinor Ostrom | Succeeded by |
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