666. This Is How Progress Happens

Economists don’t usually talk about “culture.” But Joel Mokyr argues that it’s the engine of innovation — and the Nobel Prize committee agreed. Stephen Dubner sits down for a thousand-year conversation (including advice!) with the new Nobel laureate.

• SOURCES:
  • Joel Mokyr, economic historian at Northwestern University.

• RESOURCES:
  • Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000, by Avner Greif, Joel Mokyr, and, Guido Tabellini (2025).
  • "The Outsize Role of Immigrants in US Innovation," by Shai Bernstein, Rebecca Diamond, Abhisit Jiranaphawiboon, Timothy McQuade, and Beatriz Pousada (NBER, 2023).
  • A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy, by Joel Mokyr (2016).
  • Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2012).
  • "The Economics of Being Jewish," by Joel Mokyr (Critical Review, 2011).

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