Joel Mokyr Wins The Nobel Prize: Department of Economics

Joel Mokyr Wins The Nobel Prize

Joel Mokyr smiling The halls of the Kellogg Global Hub were abuzz with excitement on the morning of October 13, 2025. Hours earlier in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Prize Committee had announced that Department of Economics Professor Joel Mokyr was one of three recipients of the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.

Professor Mokyr was awarded one half of the prize “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.” The other half of the prize was split between Philippe Aghion and Northwestern Ph.D. alumnus Peter Howitt ('73). What followed October 13 were weeks of excitement and joy in the department and a whirlwind for Professor Mokyr leading up to the Nobel awards ceremony in December. Joel Mokyr and students under the Weber Arch

Describing himself in a November 2025 interview with The Daily Northwestern as “academically monogamous”, Professor Mokyr has been a faculty member at Northwestern for over fifty-one years. The Nobel Prize is just one more honor on Professor Mokyr’s long list of accolades throughout his storied career, an honor that the publication The Economist described as long overdue for Mokyr and economic historians.

On December 10, 2025, faculty colleagues and students of Prof. Mokyr gathered in the Kellogg Global Hub to watch Mokyr accept his award in real time. Cheers rang out as Prof. Mokyr accepted his medal and diploma from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Joel Mokyr accepting his Nobel prize Later that evening at the Nobel Prize banquet, Prof. Mokyr presented a speech on behalf of his fellow winners, ending by saying, "History exemplifies how in the past ingenuity has solved the technical challenges of society, from smallpox vaccination to nitrogen fixing to cancer therapy. It must continue to do so – because any alternative will be disastrous."

This spring, the Department of Economics will hold a conference in honor of Prof. Mokyr on May 29 and 30, 2026, organized by Prof. Walker Hanlon. For questions about the conference, please contact Mariya Acherkan.