To celebrate his 90th birthday, Douglass C. North, PhD (left), the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences, welcomed colleagues and friends such as Elinor Ostrom, PhD, to a two-day conference Nov. 5 and 6 at Washington University in St. Louis honoring his legacy in the field of institutional economics. North received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1993 for his pioneering work, which integrates the role of institutions, social and cognitive sciences to study how societies and their economies evolve. Ostrom, the Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University Bloomington and a 2009 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, is a longtime friend and proponent of the multidiscipline approach to economics. A standing-room-only crowd packed the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall for Ostrom’s keynote address before a celebratory dinner where student a cappella group The Ghostlights performed for North’s friends, colleagues and former students from around the world.
