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Joel Mokyr

Joel Mokyr is an American and Israeli economic historian at Northwestern University who shared the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

born 1946The 2025 Nobel Prize in economicsThe concept of Industrial EnlightenmentThe book A Culture of GrowthResearch on technology and economic growth

Born: 26 July 1946, Leiden
Occupation: economic historian, university teacher, economist, Nobel Prize winner
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yale University

Joel Mokyr was born in 1946 in Leiden

Joel Mokyr was born in Leiden, Netherlands, in 1946, to a family of Dutch Jews who had survived the Holocaust. His father, Salomon Mok, a civil servant, died of cancer when Joel was one year old. In 1955 he moved to Israel with his mother, Gonda, and grew up in Haifa.

He earned a degree in economics and history from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968. He then studied economics at Yale University, finishing a master's degree in 1972 and a doctorate in 1974. His dissertation dealt with industrial growth in the Low Countries and appeared as a book in 1976.

He joined Northwestern University in 1974 and has taught there since, becoming a full professor in 1980. He is also an adjunct professor at Tel Aviv University's school of economics. He edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History and led the Economic History Association from 2002 to 2003.

His research links the Industrial Revolution to culture, institutions and the growth of useful knowledge in Europe. He set out these ideas in his 2016 book A Culture of Growth. In 2025 he received half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for identifying the conditions for sustained growth through technological progress.

He is married to Margalit Mokyr, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and they have two daughters.