The Hebrew University of Jerusalem conferred a prestigious honorary doctorate degree on Nobel Laureate and Northwestern University Professor Joel Mokyr during the 89th Board of Governors (BOG) Meeting on October 19, 2026, in Jerusalem, Israel.

The Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics and History in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, Mokyr shared the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for “having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.”

Prof. Mokyr has spent decades studying the cultural, institutional, and behavioral forces that spark technological breakthroughs and drive long-term economic growth. He is one of the world’s leading thinkers on how innovation occurs, providing a framework for understanding why certain businesses, industries, and societies leap ahead while others stall.

Hebrew University President Prof. Tamir Sheafer conferred the Degree of Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa upon Prof. Mokyr, "in honor of his esteemed and influential career as an economic historian, illuminating the deepest questions on human progress, culture and knowledge, crowned by the 2025 Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences; in appreciation of his love for the State of Israel, and his self-described ‘Israeli heart’; and in recognition of his strong ties to Israeli academia, in particular his connection to the Hebrew University, where his acclaimed academic life began."

Accepting the honor, Prof. Mokyr said, “I am deeply touched and moved by this honor. The Hebrew University made me what I am: they taught me how to learn and how to love learning and teaching.”

In 2018, Mokyr was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, an honor recognizing the lifetime research contributions of distinguished economists.

He received the biennial Heineken Award for History from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in 2006. In 2015, he was awarded the prestigious International Balzan Prize for his groundbreaking work on the economic history of Europe and the roots of technological change, becoming one of three Americans to receive the prize that year.

Mokyr is a fellow of KNAW, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, the British Academy, and the Italian Accademia dei Lincei. He has served as president of the Economic History Association and as a co-editor of The Journal of Economic History.

His influential books include The Lever of Riches, The Gifts of Athena, The Enlightened Economy, and A Culture of Growth. His most recent books are Two Paths to Prosperity (with Avner Greif and Guido Tabellini) and Why Britain? A New View of the Industrial Revolution (with Morgan Kelly and Cormac Ó Gráda). Mokyr serves on several editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals and is editor-in-chief of the Princeton University Press series The Princeton Economic History of the World.

In addition to the Hebrew University, Mokyr has been a visiting professor at Harvard University, the University of Chicago, Stanford University, Tel Aviv University, University College Dublin, and the University of Manchester.

Born in the Netherlands, Mokyr emigrated to Israel as a child in 1955 and grew up in Haifa. He earned a B.A. in Economics and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968 before going on to earn an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in economics from Yale University.