October 16, 2025 – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU) congratulates alumnus and visiting Professor Joel Mokyr, winner of The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025 for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.” 

Prof. Mokyr, 79, is an American-Israeli and distinguished graduate of HU, who completed his B.A. with honors in Economics and History. Mokyr is a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and teaches at Tel Aviv University.  

He received the award alongside Philippe Aghion of Collège de France, INSEAD, and the London School of Economics, as well as Peter Howitt of Brown University.  

Prof. Tamir Sheafer, President of Hebrew University, said, “Warm congratulations on this distinguished achievement. Prof. Mokyr joins a long line of Nobel Prize winners who began their research careers at the Hebrew University. For us, this is further proof of the academic excellence and status of the Hebrew University as the leading academic institution in the State of Israel.” 

The Nobel committee emphasized that the three researchers “explained the mechanisms underlying sustained technological progress and the role of innovation in economic development.”  

“Joel Mokyr used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal,” according to the Nobel Prize announcement. “He demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why. The latter was often lacking prior to the Industrial Revolution, which made it difficult to build upon new discoveries and inventions. He also emphasized the importance of society being open to new ideas and allowing change.”

Born in Leiden, the Netherlands, to Jewish Holocaust survivors, Prof. Mokyr emigrated to Israel, lived in Haifa, and attended HU before earning his doctorate at Yale.