Why do we live in unusually innovative times?
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For most of human history, economic growth was, well, pretty bleak. But around the Enlightenment, things started clicking. This year's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences went to a trio of researchers whose work focuses on how technological progress led to this sustained economic growth. Today we hear from one of them, Joel Mokyr, about his work on European economic history.
Related episodes:
Why are some nations richer? (2024 Economics Nobel)
A conversation with Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin (2023 Economics Nobel)
When Luddites attack (Update) (Featuring Joel Mokyr)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:02.0 | Greg Rzalski, author of the Planet Money newsletter, ready to pop some champagne. |
| 0:17.4 | Yeah, why are we popping champagne so early in the week again? It is the Economics |
| 0:22.4 | Nobel. And it's the one time of the year where I'm allowed to talk about Francis Bacon and the |
| 0:27.5 | scientific method and the Enlightenment and how that all led to the incredible discoveries |
| 0:31.2 | and gadgets we have today. I'm so happy for you, Darien. Yeah, so the award, this was a huge |
| 0:36.8 | win for economic historians. Among others, Joel Mokir |
| 0:41.3 | from Northwestern University. |
| 0:43.3 | For economics to work without economic history is like an evolutionary biologist without |
| 0:49.3 | paleontology. |
| 0:51.3 | And if you don't have paleontology, you just miss 99.5% of all the species that ever |
| 0:57.8 | walk to this earth. |
| 1:00.9 | This is The Indicator from Planet Money. |
| 1:03.3 | I'm Greg Rosalski. |
| 1:04.5 | In our Darym Woods. |
| 1:05.6 | Today on the show, we're going to answer the question of why technology keeps getting |
| 1:10.2 | better and better, along with Joel |
| 1:12.5 | Mokia, Philippe Alleyon and Peter Howard got the economic Nobel this year for their work on |
| 1:18.5 | understanding growth and innovation. So today we're going to focus on a part of that, Joel |
| 1:23.9 | Mokia's economic history of the European Enlightenment. |
| 1:35.0 | This message comes from The Economist, introducing The Economist Insider, a new video offering, |
| 1:38.2 | providing unprecedented access to the Economist journalists. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.