Nobel Laureate, Berkeley Economist Oliver Williamson Dies at 87

(Bloomberg) -- Oliver Williamson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who was considered a founder of organizational economics, has died at age 87.

The cause of death was complications from pneumonia following a period of failing health, the university said in a press release.

Williamson shared the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 2009 with Elinor Ostrom, the first woman recipient. He was lauded for his work on the study of how institutions are created and developed, and their effect on economic growth.

His award came during the global financial crisis as banks failed and the government debated bailout plans. Williamson’s research suggested that it is better to regulate large companies than to try to break them up or limit their size.

Williamson found that large corporations exist primarily because they are efficient and benefit owners, workers, suppliers and customers, the Swedish academy said at the time. They can abuse their power and may need to be regulated, he had said.

“Williamson’s work permanently changed how economists view organizations,” said Rich Lyons, who was dean of Berkeley’s Haas School of Business when Williamson won the Nobel and is now the school’s chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer.

“Yet for all of his intellectual creativity, I most often think of Olly as a person who lifts others,” Lyons said. “The ripple effects that he has had on his field through his students and colleagues could well be as large as the enormous impact his own work had.”

Costs, Trade-Offs

Williamson’s research also expanded the field of economics into governance within organizations, the school said. He showed that economics could illuminate the costs and trade-offs that parties make in transactions.

A native of Wisconsin, Williamson received a bachelor’s degree in management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1955, a master’s in business adm

inistration from Stanford University in 1960, and a doctorate in economics from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1963.

He began his teaching career at Berkeley, but moved to the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. He joined the faculty at Yale University in 1983 before returning to Berkeley in 1988. He retired from teaching in 2004.

In 2013 Williamson and Janet Yellen, a fellow Haas professor who at the time was vice chair of the Federal Reserve and became chair in 2014, were named Berkeley Fellows — an honorific society for those who’ve made particular contributions to the university.

Williamson is survived by his five children and five grandchildren.

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