American-Israeli economist and historian at Northwestern University. He studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and has been based in America for over 50 years. He is a vocal critic of Israel's current government. He was awarded the Nobel prize in economics on October 13th 2025, sharing the prize with Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt. Mokyr received half the prize; Aghion and Howitt shared the other half. The prize money was 11m Swedish kronor ($1.2m). The award received muted recognition in Israel, partly because of his politics and partly because he exemplifies the brain drain that Israelis fear.
Mokyr's Nobel-winning research deals with why economic growth took off. For the vast majority of human history GDP did not rise; then, around the mid-18th century, it shot up. Mokyr places high value on the power of ideas to explain this shift. His book "A Culture of Growth", published in 2016, argues that around the 17th century European cultural norms changed in a manner conducive to scientific experimentation and discovery, and then to the commercialisation of those ideas.
In making such arguments Mokyr overturned a prevailing consensus which held that engineering advances owed little to science. Thomas Kuhn, the most famous historian of science, thought that science and engineering worked in opposition until the 1870s. By contrast, Mokyr argued that institutions like London's Royal Society, founded in 1660, fused science and engineering at a much earlier stage.
The flourishing of commercial science also required the right political conditions. In China, the ruling class worried that free-thinkers might overturn the established order and crushed them. Europe seemed more suited to intellectual progress: having lots of states in close proximity meant that academics who incurred the wrath of the authorities could escape relatively easily. Governments there were also more prepared to allow "creative destruction", where old firms die and new ones grow. For all these reasons Europe, and not Asia, was the first continent to industrialise.
Mokyr has written on a wide range of topics, including the Irish Famine and the history of working from home. He writes better than almost any of his wonky peers, producing books that even a layman might be tempted to pull from the shelf.
Free Speech Is The Right To Shout 'Theater' In A Crowded Fire.