The 2019 Nobel Prize for Economics was given to a woman for the second time, name the first woman who was earlier awarded this prize.

The answer is D. Elinor Ostrom (the option is misspelt as 'Elinar') became the first woman to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009, sharing it with Oliver Williamson for showing how communities manage common-pool resources like fisheries, forests and groundwater without either the state or the market taking over. In 2019 Esther Duflo became the second woman, sharing the prize with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer for experimental approaches to alleviating global poverty.

• A) Esther Duflo: She is the second woman, not the first, and the question asks for the earlier winner.
• B) Gerty Theresa Cori: Won the Nobel in Physiology or Medicine in 1947 (shared with Carl Cori and Bernardo Houssay), not Economics.
• C) Maria Goeppert Mayer: Won the Nobel Physics prize in 1963 for the nuclear shell model.

Core concept: governance of common-pool resources, which links to GS-III (environment, conservation) and GS-II (institutions and collective action). Ostrom's work challenged the 'tragedy of the commons' view that such resources must be left to the state or the market.

Trap: Candidates mix up the Economics prize with other Nobel categories where Cori and Mayer won, and forget that Duflo is the second woman, not the first.