DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Saito, a fourth-year student researching the economic impacts of the Japanese American internment during World War II, explains, "[Prof. Joel Mokyr has] encouraged me to continue on with my work even when confronted with many roadblocks—and he also encourages me to think bigger, too. He’ll engage with my ideas, help me work out the conceptual flow of things, and then ask me how my hypotheses relate to global cases of discrimination to other minority groups, or how the evolution of American race relations compares to those of other countries."

"Providing a novel answer to a fundamental question in economic and political history, Two Paths to Prosperity shows how extended kinship in Chinese society facilitated the consolidation of autocracy and hindered innovation and economic development, and how corporations in Europe influenced emerging state institutions and set the stage for the Industrial Revolution."

Check here for more information about Nobel Laureate Prof. Joel Mokyr and compiled set of media coverage.

Brown University Professor Emeritus Peter Howitt received his PhD in Economics from NU in 1973. He is among three economists awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, along with our own Prof. Joel Mokyr.

"The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for 2025 to three economists for showing how technological progress has led to sustained economic growth. Mokyr receives half of the prize for his development of a theory for sustained economic growth. Mokyr identified three important requisites for growth: useful knowledge, mechanical competence and institutions conducive to technological progress."

"The age-old debate over whether principals or district offices should hold the reins in schools has gotten a fresh empirical test, courtesy of a new NBER working paper from Northwestern University economist Kirabo Jackson. The question seems simple: Should principals be empowered as the CEOs of their schools, or should they mainly implement directives crafted by their districts?"