Talk:Vincent Ostrom

Slanted Claim about influence of Knight, Mises, Hayek
The intro makes the claim that The Ostroms made particular study of fragmentation theory, rational choice theory, federalism, common-pool resources and polycentrism in government, basing much of his research on the work of early 20th century political economists Frank Knight, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek. The citation is ''(2005) P. J. Boettke and C. J. Coyne. Methodological individualism, spontaneous order and the research program of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Vol.57 (2), pp. 145-158.''

That claim--that Vincent or both Ostroms based much of his/their research on Knight, Mises, and Hayek--is a strong claim, but I don't think it's supported by a strong body of evidence. There is a response paper written by Michael D. McGinnis, (faculty at Indiana University, and Senior Research fellow at the Ostrom Workshop): ''Beyond individualism and spontaneity: Comments on Peter Boettke and Christopher Coyne. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization Vol. 57 (2005) 167–172''

McGinnis writes ''I have been associated with the Workshop for a little over ten years now, and it is reassuring to realize that I am following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Hayek, Knight, and Mises, not to mention Hume and Smith. That is a real ego-boost, and I do appreciate it. However, as someone operating within the Workshop tradition, I have a different perspective on the extent of this borrowing from past luminaries. I think that the Ostroms and the rest of us have made rather more substantial departures beyond these intellectual forebears than may be evident from Boettke and Coyne’s overview.'' Notice he includes Hume and Smith to both highlight and balance Boettke and Coyne's slant. Overall, the response paper is a polite and academic admonishment of Boettke and Coyne's painting of the Ostroms' roots as more Austrian than they were.

I think the claim simply needs to be removed. I'd like to improve the article a bit too, with some of the material from here: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/22741.html but for now I'm leaving this background info for anyone else passing through. -- 24.21.130.213 (talk) 05:58, 30 October 2013 (UTC)