Joel Mokyr

Who is Joel Mokyr?

Joel Mokyr is an American and Israeli economic historian. Mokyr was born in the Netherlands and raised in Israel. He is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern University.

Mokyr holds a joint appointment in economics as well as a Sackler Professorial Fellow at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. He is particularly interested in the economic history of technology and population, but considers himself a general-purpose economic historian. A former editor of the Journal of Economic History and President of the Economic History Association, he served as the editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Economic History, and continues to be editor in chief of a book series published by Princeton University Press, The Princeton University Press Economic History of the Western World. A former chair of the Economics Department and President of the Economic History Association, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a number of comparable institutions in Europe.