When I saw Joel Mokyr had won half the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences this year, I had a strange mix of pride and PTSD.
I took his modern European economic history class at Northwestern—one of the toughest, most demanding courses of my undergrad career. He expected total command of the reading, and he could turn “What do you remember from the reading about Winston Churchill?” into a full-blown oral exam. I don’t think I was his best student. But I do remember one lecture crystal clear: the week we talked about plumbing.
Mokyr walked us through how modern sanitation—the unglamorous stuff like pipes, sewers, and clean water—transformed the economic health of Europe. By reducing disease, increasing productivity, and extending life expectancy, it turned survival into opportunity. That simple connection between public health and prosperity has stuck with me ever since. Even then, I didn’t realize I was sitting in on what would become Nobel-winning work.
Because, while plumbing wasn’t the centerpiece of his research, it illustrated a big point he’s been making his whole career: progress doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when societies allow ideas to move freely, reward problem-solvers, and build institutions strong enough to support experimentation—but flexible enough not to crush it.
That, in essence, is what Mokyr studies. His work explores why, out of all the centuries of human history, sustained economic growth only took off in the last few hundred years. He argues that three things came together to make that possible:
Knowledge creation and accumulation—scientific understanding that didn’t just produce tools, but explained why they worked.
Technical skill and adoption—craftsmen, inventors, and entrepreneurs who could turn theory into real progress.
Institutional freedom—cultural and political systems that allowed new ideas to compete, even when they disrupted the old order.
Those ingredients created what he called a “culture of growth”—the environment that made the Industrial Revolution possible and, by extension, modern prosperity. The Nobel committee honored Mokyr for explaining how that interplay between ideas, innovation, and institutions fuels long-term progress.
To me, those lessons reach far beyond history. They shape the way I think about policy today. At National Taxpayers Union, our work is grounded in the same insight that underpins Mokyr’s research: sustainable economic growth depends on the freedom to innovate. You can’t mandate discovery. You can only make space for it.
That’s why NTU pushes for policies that keep that space open—by lowering barriers and letting competition drive outcomes. When we fight against state-level price controls on prescription drugs, it’s not just about market mechanics. It’s because those controls kill the very incentives that make medical breakthroughs possible—the modern equivalent of the plumbing revolution. When we call for reforming payroll taxes or streamlining UI systems, it’s to give workers and small businesses the flexibility to hire, build, and experiment. When we push back against overregulation in fields like AI, data, or energy, it’s to ensure that the next generation of ideas isn’t smothered in red tape before it starts.
Mokyr’s research is a historical lens, but it points forward. It tells us that prosperity is a policy choice. Societies that let ideas flow grow stronger. Those that wall them off will slow down. To me, his work is a warning to every lawmaker who thinks economic growth can be planned from the top down, and a reminder to every reformer that the real task of government isn’t to invent the future. We must protect the freedom that allows others to.
So yes, Professor Mokyr, congratulations on your Nobel. I may not have been your brightest protegee, but some lessons landed. And every time I hear another debate about innovation or regulation or “who gets credit for growth,” I still think back to that plumbing lecture—and how much harder it is to fix an economy once you’ve clogged the pipes.
Photo: Joel Mokyr, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons