From the Environmental Economics blog (who got it from Indiana University):

The entire Indiana University community mourns the passing today of Distinguished Professor Elinor Ostrom, who received the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for her groundbreaking research on the ways that people organize themselves to manage resources.

This is a very sad day for natural resource economics. Elinor Ostrom single-handedly demolished the Tragedy Of The Commons paradigm: whereas textbook economics tells us that common pool resources will eventually be depleted, she described plenty of counter-examples where they were managed fairly well. Her work was so unique many economists simply refer to it as “Elinor Ostrom’s work”.

She will be sorely missed.