Oliver E. Williamson

Oliver Eaton Williamson (1932 to 2020) was an American economist and longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who won a share of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences alongside Elinor Ostrom. His work on transaction cost economics and the theory of the firm, which he described as a blend of soft social science and abstract economic theory, has been widely influential in explaining why economic activity is organized inside companies rather than through open markets, shaping later thinking on corporate governance and business strategy.