Nov. 19, 2009

Contact:
Renee DeGross Valdes, 404-413-1353
University Relations

ATLANTA - James C. Cox, director of the Experimental Economics Center at Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, and Prof. Elinor Ostrom of Indiana University - the Nobel Prize winner for economics - were recently awarded $800,000 in collaborative grants by the National Science Foundation.

"It's a privilege to be working with such an incredible scholar," said Cox, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar who also holds the Noah Langdale Jr. Chair in economics at Georgia State.

Dean W. Bartley Hildreth said this research is important for The Andrew Young School. "This kind of basic research will help inform future policy making."

Much of Cox's recent work centers on study of the economics of trust, reciprocity and altruism with private property. Ostrom is a professor and the co-founder and senior research director of the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University. She has spent her lifetime investigating how people cooperate rather than are motivated by self-interest in common property.

The three-year grant will fund experimental economics research that can inform policy on the environment. One focus of the research will be on ways in which administrative controls can improve or worsen outcomes.

"It's important to understand how people are motivated when they treat the environment," Cox said. "Conventional belief predicts that selfishness leads to environmental tragedies such as global warming when there is common rather than private property. Our research identifies properties of institutions that prevent such tragedies with either private or common property."

Vjollca Sadiraj, assistant professor with Georgia State University's Andrew Young School and James M. Walker, professor at Indiana University are co-researchers on these grants.