Joel Mokyr

Quotes

• “As Hooykaas (1972, p. 101) argued, the pervasiveness of religion meant that for any idea to become socially acceptable, it made a huge difference whether it was resisted, tolerated, or sponsored by prevalent religious beliefs.”
• “Hooykaas (1972, p. 100) writes that especially commercial and industrial cities were intellectually dynamic, far more so than sleepy university towns. These cities also tended to be more tolerant of different religions and multilingual. Modern research has found that especially cities involved in Atlantic trade were institutionally dynamic.”
• “The physical and social environment is important in determining the actions of individuals, although it is not solely responsible for the outcome.”
• “Economists have traditionally been leery at mentalités as a factor in long-term economic development. In the budding literature on the economic rise of the West, such factors have been ignored or curtly dismissed. In the past, economists’ hostility to religious factors stems from the incompleteness of such theories. Attitudes were a matter of degree, not of absolutes.”
• “If England led the rest of the world in the Industrial Revolution, it was despite, not because of her formal education system.”
• “What made the West successful was neither capitalism, nor science, nor an historical accident such as a favourable geography. Instead, political and mental diversity combined to create an ever changing panorama of technologically creative societies.”

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Key facts

Born

Joel Michael Mokyr , ( 1946-07-26 ) 26 July 1946 (age 79) , Leiden , Netherlands

Citizenship

American Israeli

Awards

Heineken Award for History (2006), Balzan Prize (2015), Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2025)

Education

Hebrew University of Jerusalem ( BA ), Yale University ( MPhil , PhD )

Thesis

Industrial Growth and Stagnation in the Low Countries, 1800–1850 (1974)

Discipline

Economic history

Institutions

Northwestern University

Doctoral students

Avner Greif , Ran Abramitzky, Mauricio Drelichman, Marlous van Waijenburg

Main interests

Economic history of Europe

Influenced

Cormac Ó Gráda

via Wikipedia infobox

Key dates

Born

26 July 1946

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Wikidata facts

Instance of

human

Given name

Joel

Gender

male

Citizenship

United States

Place of birth

Leiden

Occupation

historian

Educated at

Yale University

Employer

Tel Aviv University

Languages spoken

Hebrew

Award

Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

Academic degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Field of work

economic history

Image

Joel Mokyr.png

via Wikidata · CC0