Joel Mokyr

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Joel Michael Mokyr (יואל מיכאל מוקיר; born 26 July 1946) is an American and Israeli economic historian who has been a professor of economics and history and the [[Robert H. Strotz|Template:Nobr]] Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University. He has also been the Sackler Professorial Fellow at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. He was awarded half a share of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2025 "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress."

Early life and education

Joel Mokyr was born in Leiden, Netherlands, in 1946. He was born into a family of Dutch Jews who had survived the Holocaust. His father Salomon Mok, a civil servant, died of cancer when Mokyr was one year old. He immigrated to Israel as a child with his mother Gunda Mok (née Jakobs), and grew up in Haifa. He received a B.A. in economics and history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968. He then received an M.Phil. in economics from Yale University in 1972, and a Ph.D. in economics from Yale in 1974. His dissertation was titled Industrial Growth and Stagnation in the Low Countries, 1800–1850.

Career

Mokyr was an acting instructor at Yale University between 1972 and 1973, and became an assistant professor at Northwestern University in 1974, where he has remained ever since.

He has been the editor-in-chief of the Princeton Economic History of the Western World (a book series published by Princeton University Press), and was a co-editor of the Journal of Economic History. He was the President of the Economic History Association from 2002 to 2003.

A Culture of Growth

Mokyr presents his explanations for the Industrial Revolution in the 2016 book A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. The book has received positive reviews. Deirdre McCloskey described it as a "brilliant book... It's long, but consistently interesting, even witty. It sustains interest right down to page 337... The book is not beach reading. But you will finish it impressively learned about how we got to where we are in the modern world." In her review, McCloskey furthermore lauded Mokyr as a "Nobel-worthy economic scientist".

In a review published in Nature, Brad DeLong found that while he favored other explanations for the Industrial Revolution, "I would not be greatly surprised if I were wrong, and Mokyr's brief...turned out to be the most broadly correct analysis...A Culture of Growth is certainly making me rethink."

Cambridge economic historian Victoria Bateman wrote, "In pointing to growth-boosting factors that go beyond either the state or the market, Mokyr's book is very welcome. It could also feed into discussions about the scientific community post-Brexit. By reviving the focus on culture it will, however, prove controversial, particularly among economists." An article in The Economist pointed out that a fine definitional distinction had to be considered between "culture as ideas, socially learned" and "culture as inheritance transmitted genetically". The book has also been reviewed favorably by Diane Coyle, Foreign Affairs, The Independent, and the Journal of Economic Literature. Geoffrey Hodgson criticized the book for placing "too much explanatory weight" on "too few extraordinary people."

Honours and awards

Mokyr was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996, and was elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society in 2011. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001, whose biennial Heineken Award for History he received in 2006. He won the 2015 Balzan International Prize for economic history. He was awarded half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2025 "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress", the other half going to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.

Personal life

Mokyr is married to Margalit (née Birnbaum), professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Illinois Chicago. They have two daughters.

Books

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See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates
• List of Israeli Nobel laureates

External links

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• Profile, Northwestern.edu; accessed 21 January 2016.