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Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences | Northwestern Press Conference

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All right, good afternoon everyone and

thank you for joining us in this uh for

this incredible day at Northwestern. My

name is John Yates. I'm the vice

president for global marketing and

communications at Northwestern. Today

you're going to hear from our president

Henry Bean, Adrien Randolph, uh our dean

of the Weineberg College of Arts and

Sciences, and finally from our Nobel

Prize winner in economic sciences, Joel Moir.

After brief comments, Professor Mo here

will then take some questions from the

media in attendance. And we also have

some questions that media who could not

attend but are watching on the live

stream uh submitted in in advance. So

I'll be asking him those questions as

well. So I think we'll just get this

started. Um I'm going to first welcome

up President Bean to say a couple words.

So President Henry Bean, you want to

join us up here? [Applause]

[Applause]

Thank you, John. Well, today it's a

great day for my friend Joel Moir and

for Northwestern. We recognize Joel Moir

on this remarkable achievement of the

Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.

Because Joel is an economic historian,

he will remember that we shared a um

line or file in the old gym where we had

lockers next to each other. So I know

him pretty well from that. Uh but

seriously speaking on uh Joel on behalf

of Northwestern's faculty, staff,

students, alumni, and friends across the

globe, we congratulate you and we thank

you for demonstrating this university's

greatness on the world stage. And I

congratulate all your colleagues in

economics and in history. At

Northwestern, we often talk about

interdisciplinary work as a cornerstone

of our strength and professor Moir

reflects that strength with a research

that brings together economics,

history, science, and technology.

Northwestern is one of the world's most

preeminent universities precisely

because of our brilliant faculty like

Professor Moir and they push the

boundaries of research in their quest to

improve the human experience.

Professor Moir's research focuses on

innovation and growth and the important

role that science plays in the

advancement of our society. Importantly,

his research also highlights the need

for society to be open to change. These

are themes that resonate deeply as

institutions across the country,

including ours, work to demonstrate the

value of our research, not only to our

elected officials, but to each and every

member of the public. Today, we reflect

on the important factors that lead to

prosperity and how we may apply them.

moving forward.

Many congratulations are in order. We

once again congratulate Professor Moir.

We also congratulate his fellow prize

winners, Professor Aon, Phipe Aion, and

Peter Howard. We congratulate his

colleagues in the department of

economics and the department of history.

We congratulate the college of arts and

sciences including Dean Adrien Randolph

who will be here in a moment. And we

congratulate everybody, every faculty

member, postdoal researcher, staff

member and student who contributes to

this amazing academic community where

research thrives and where students have

a front row seat in history. Thank you

very much. [Applause]

[Applause]

Hello, I'm Adrienne Randolph, dean of

Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

And for those of us fortunate enough to

know Joel McKe, we know what a gem he

is. And I hope many more will find out

about him in the days to come owing to

this extraordinary recognition. Joel is

a remarkable scholar, teacher, and

human. It really is gratifying to see

him named Nobel Prize winner in economic

sciences in 2025. It is fully deserved.

Joel arrived, as I'm sure you can read,

but I'll just recap, at Northwestern in

1974 and quickly rose through the ranks

and was named in 1994 the Robert H.

Stroz Professor. He's a proud member of

both our topranked economics department

and our topranked history department. He

is moreover co-director of the center

for economic history. He is the author

of scores of books. I can't possibly

name them all but to give you a taste of

the range of his topics that he covers.

Uh his books here are a sampling.

Industrialization in the low countries.

Economics of the industrial revolution.

The lever of riches. Techn technological

creativity and economic progress. The

gifts of Athena. Historical origins of

the knowledge economy and a culture of

growth. Origins of the modern economy.

Prolific and influential Moir has. His

ideas have circulated globally.

comfortable in the worlds of Renaissance

humanism and in the early modern

Republic of Letters in the 15th and 16th

century, in the scientific revolutions

of the 17th century and in the sometimes

hotheaded debates of the enlightenment

and romanticism the 18th and 19th

centuries. Mochir mingles a deep

commitment to intellectual history with

the histories of science, technology,

and markets associated with the long

industrial revolution.

Rather than trying to sum up uh

professor Mokio's scholarship, let me

just offer one citation which I think uh

or quotation which really captures some

of the spirit of his work. I'll just set

the scene. The book uh a culture of

growth charts the intricate web and uh

of ideas and experts connecting

fundamental discoveries in science and

technology to the development of our

modern economy. Supporting this thesis

is a remarkable SCE of cultural threads

drawn from well-known and very little

known sources. He links pathblazing

experts educated in the new discoveries

of fundamental science to what he calls

tweakers and tinkerers who spread

knowledge and technical skill across

Europe and the world. Among Moir's key

insights is this visionary and topical

claim. quote, "The liberal ideas of

religious tolerance, free entry into the

market for ideas, and belief in the

transnational character of the

intellectual community were essential to

enlightenment thought. These were the

cultural underpinnings that not only

supported a functioning market for

ideas, that is a market in which

innovators had a fair chance to persuade

their audiences, they also actively

encouraged intellectual innovation and

thus laid the foundation for the

emergence of the modern economy.

Joel reminds us that cultural

commitments to tolerance, to academic

freedom, and to internationalism are the

preconditions of our economy. These

values upheld within institutions like

our university which depends on

pluralism and rationality are the

building blocks for many of the advances

that stream through successful markets

and societies. And these values are

worth underscoring as we celebrate today

our colleague and friend Joel McKe. Joel.

Joel. [Applause]

[Applause]

as you might uh as you might all imagine

um I'm still a little bit dazed by you

know what transpired uh today but I want

to start with something completely

unrelated to this prize and that is that

this is a very special day for me seeing

seeing the return of 20 live hostages of

my countrymen uh this morning which um

you know warms my heart far more than

any other personal achievement that I

can can ever get. Uh so it was this

morning when I got up early and I dashed

off to my laptop to check whether

these uh hostage has been returned.

And then I noticed in my email there

were all these messages of

congratulations. And I go, you know

what, this is what what are they

congratulating me for? And I thought it

was maybe people mistaken my birthday or

something. But uh but now I mean there

was an an

a missed call from with a country code

of 42 which is Sweden and then all of a

suen something started to dawn on me

still trying to digest this. It will

probably take you know a couple of

weeks. Um so as Andrea and Adrien said

I'm an economic historian. I've been an

economic historian at Northwestern for

um 51 years now. I'm starting my uh 52nd.

52nd.

Uh still going strong. Uh and um I have

been a proud member of two of not just

the university's most distinguished

department but the world's most

distinguished department. Um the

economics department um and the history

department of which I'm in both of them

a full citizen. um being in those two

departments um is quite interesting uh

in part because the two cultures are

essentially non-over overlapping and you

know in in history and in Harris Hall

it's a very different world than when

you're in the in in the Kellogg building

um different language you know different

people but they share a commitment to

scholarship and to teaching uh second to

none and it's been I've been very proud

to be a member of both of those

departments Also, as I said, it does

lead to some u interesting situations. I

think there was a time when I was

simultaneously the most leftwing member

of the economics department and the most

right-wing member of the history

department. Uh which is still which is

still possible. So, having been here for

as I said over 50 years, of course, both

departments changed over time. Many

colleagues left and passed on and new

colleagues joined. I think the

commitment to scholarship and to true uh

intellectual activity has remained

constant over time and if anything uh

has improved. And one of the joys uh of

my life here has been not just those

books that that Henry talked about you

know you know you write them because

what else is there to do but um training

graduate students and over these years I

have a large number of brilliant

graduate students in economics and in

history and many of them today I'm proud

to say occupy positions in some of the

best universities uh in the country. uh

some of them have their their own

students and these students have their

students. So I have actually

intellectual great grandchildren which

is kind of a bit of a an an awesome

feeling and some of my students former

students actually are retiring. So um

the news for you Adrian is no way I'm

going to go retire. Okay? So no don't

worry even if my students are retiring

not me. All right. So I'm not going to

talk a lot about economic history here

because you know it would get boring and

technical but I do want to make one or

two points

uh that I think are worth uh thinking

about. Um in 1994

uh the Nobel committee awarded for the

first time an a Nobel Prize to two

economic historians uh Robert Fogle and

Douglas North. I still remember very

well the morning when the news came. I

had a graduate student at Washington

University where Doug taught and he

called me and said, "Joel, did you hear

that uh Fogle and North won the Nobel

Prize?" And I had tears in my eyes of of

excitement because this was us. This was

us the tribe of economic historians

being recognized by the economics

profession in a way that we didn't

really feel possible. Since then uh more

economic historians have received the

Nobel Prize although somehow the Nobel

committee managed to dress it up as if

it was for something else. So Claudia

Golden at Harvard got it for her work on

gender economics. But of course Claudia

is a 100% economic historian. She and I

came on the scene almost at the same

time. So slightly younger the people who

got it last year, Darona Simoglu and Jim

Robinson, both of whom got it for work

they did in economic history. Although

if you knew Don Simoglu, you realize

he's active in another 12 fields in in

in in economics. But that's what they

got the prize for. So I want to cite two

things that I learned from those Nobel

Prize winners and explore it meaning

just for a second. Uh Bob Fogle

said to me once, you know, Joel,

economics must deal with economic

history. He says, for economics to work

without economic history is like an

evolutionary biologist without paleontology.

paleontology.

And if you don't have paleontology, you

just miss 99.5%

of all the species that ever walked this

earth. And so I teach economic history

in some sense keeping that in mind that

we can observe in the past

economic systems, economic societies,

economic interactions that we don't have

anymore. Some of them just as well, you

know, I mean formal slave markets,

feudalism, uh a whole bunch of of of

other things that have disappeared from

this earth. And you know, we're not

sorry about to to leave. But if we don't

study those, okay, we're really missing

a great deal of what economics can teach

us. And so u that's what I spend my life doing.

doing.

Doug who was a very close personal

friend u once said to me and we had a

long Doug was Mr. institutions. He

talked about you know whatever it was

that they he talked he was thinking

about institutions always somehow came

up. uh and he said to me once and I'll

keep citing that that that line because

it's really meaningful. He said, "Joel,

you know, there's a good reason why we

economic historians speak of

technological progress but institutional change."

change."

And he said, you know, the reason is

very simple. Technology really by and

large advances and has an upward trend

in large parts because it's cumulative,

right? So we know what the people before

us knew but they don't know what we

know. So we always know more and so our

technology is getting better. You know

one could argue with that on the fringes

but as a first approximation it's not

bad but institutions he says there's no

such trend. There is no way that we can

show that they get better over time.

They do go up they go they do go down. I

mean there's periods in which

institutions all over the world were

getting remarkably worse particularly

the inter war period in the 20th century

say and they they get better in the

years after 1945 and then again after

maybe uh 1989 90 but he says

subsequently they will come down again

and it seems that there's some evidence

to show that that's what's happening uh

today that's an I think I think an

extremely important lesson from uh

economic history because as technology

gives us more power over nature and more

ways you know to achieve our goals and

to harness the forces of nature to our

goals. uh if the institutions are bad

and by institutions north meant and I

think most of us mean essentially the

rules of the game in economics and in

politics and if institutions get worse

while technology gets better the outcome

can be quite devastating to the people

and so that sort of once you think about

it it's kind of obvious right so you

know you make a hammer you build a

technological tool um you It can be used

to build a home and it can be used to

bash uh you know uh Abel and Cain's

heads in. That's I think something

that's true across the board for uh

technological change throughout the

ages. Gunpowder can be used to fight

wars and it can be used to build

tunnels. Um, and I think the same is

true for the things that are on the

horizon today, including artificial

intelligence, genetic engineering, and

so on and and so forth. So, there's some

I'm an optimist, and I've always been an

optimist, as my as my colleague Bob

Gordon, who's been here since I've been,

and we've been had many interesting

conversations about this. So um

but I think we should always keep in

mind that technology can be abused but

that by and large it is still true that

if you had to choose a year in human

history in which you wanted to be born,

I would choose 1925

because I still think that our

capability of creating techniques that

make our lives better, more comfortable,

uh longer, reduce disease, reduce

mortality, keeps us cool in the summer

and warm in the winter and make sure

that we eat well, that those techniques

will continue to improve. And in so far

that things go wrong and unfortunately

there are still famines in this world

and there's still people not getting an

education. It is not the fault of

technology. It is the fault of our

institutions that haven't been getting better.

better.

Now there is before I

quit this there's something I I do want

to point out and that is there is a

literature today that basically says you

know we really should stop innovation

you know we growth is bad you know this

whole anti-growth thing all it's you

know it's done it's it's brought misery

on this world you know my late colleague

in the history department and brilliant

brilliant historian called David

Gerovski whom I love dearly

But David once yelled at me says, "What

is all this talk about technological

progress? It's not getting better. You

know, life in cities was terrible. You

know, people were the water cities were

dirty and smoky." You know, and you

know, my my point is, David, and I said

this to him, David, you want one number

to show you how things are getting

better? look at infant mortality

statistics and see how much better our

life is than it than it was a 100 years

ago, 200 years ago. Now that said, the

human race faces two of the greatest

challenges that it has ever faced and

these things have no real precedent. So

history is not a very good guide here,

but it's something that we have to face

and we have to think about with the

tools that history provides us. Even if

history itself doesn't give you an

answer and those are

climate change and the demographic

change and they're very different in

their nature and they're very different

in the solutions but given that the only

way in which we can cope with this

crisis is inventing ourselves out of it.

Uh I strongly urge the world to keep

putting efforts

and money and resources and incentives

to the people who trying to invent us

out of these two crisis.

Uh and I think if we achieve that I

think technology

uh will have fulfilled its role. Now

this is not an uncontroversial point.

Um, but I think there seems to be almost

no other way of dealing with it. And so

I want to say seeing everybody here and

the many emails that I've gotten um I

have, as we call it in economics, have

enough warm glow to contribute

marginally to climate change. Thank you

I'm just gonna Yeah. All right. Thank

you, Professor Moir. We're gonna take

some questions now from from the

audience and from the media. Who do you

want to go back up here and uh I'll

distribute these microphones to my team

over here. If there are folks in the

audience, I do have some questions from

the media um who sent them in ahead of

time as well.

Do we have anyone who's got some

Nobody? If not, then I will read from

the questions that were submitted ahead

of time. All right, we'll try we'll try

a couple of these real quick. All right.

Um, so the first question comes from I'm

just going to sit over here so we're

closer together. Um the first question

comes from um an outlet in South Korea

called Eaily and the question is South

Korea has experienced rapid

technological advancement and industrial

growth yet faces slowing productivity

and structural rigidity. From your

research on historical roots of uh

innovation and sustained growth, what

lessons do you think countries like

Korea can take uh to ensure that

innovation continues to translate into

long-term prosperity? Yeah, I I must say

I I find it slightly ironic that this

question comes to me from

South Korea because in my lecture about

institutions, I always contrast as is

almost inevitable South Korea with North

Korea to exemplify the fact that if you

have reasonably good institutions, you

do a heck of a lot a lot better than if

you have lousy institutions as they do

in Pyongy. young. I mean, that seems

kind of obvious and I think Asterogl and

Robinson made this point and everybody

makes this point and so to to to worry

about the South Korean problems given

that it is a wealthy peaceful country um

that um you know has miraculously pulled

itself up from very low income per

capita in the 1950s to one of the

wealthier nations in the world today

strikes me as as sort of a I mean if you

worry about South Korea, what do you

think about North Korea, what do you

think about, you know, other countries,

Myanmar, countries like that. Those are

the countries I worry about. South Korea

has should continue to do what it has

been doing all these times. It should

make sure its borders are open, that it

is tapped into the best practice

technologies of this world, and they

should have more babies. That I think is

the one concern that causing, you know,

some kind of stagnation in South Korea.

I think they have one of the lowest

birth rates on this planet. You know, I

mean maybe this is a choice that they

made. I think there's another question

here about fertility. We come we can

come back to that. But in terms of

technological innovation, I mean

some people here in the audience must be

driving a Korean-made car. And uh I

don't think that they would feel very

much inclined to think of these

Korean-made cars as an example of bad

technology. If you want an example of a

bad technology, look at the cars that

were made in the Eastern Europe before

it collapsed. And you know, if you ever

wanted to see a really bad car, you

should try a Trabant, which is now a

museum piece. Now, South Korea doesn't

make Trabons. They make cars that run

and run and run. So to say that I'm

really in all due respect um really

worried about their economic future.

Many other countries on this planet

would like to change to trade places

with them.

That's that's great. A follow-up

question from the same outlet. How

important do you believe openness and

the free exchange of knowledge are for

sustaining growth in an era of growing

geopolitical and technological

fragmentation? Well, I'm a, you know, a

great fan of the free exchange of

knowledge. I'm also a great fan of the

free exchange of anything else,

including goods and services. So um my

big advice to countries like that is

stay open and keep the country not only

open in terms of its boundaries but of

it the freedom of its people to say what

they want to have a free press to have

free elections. Um South Korea has had a

reasonably successful democracy. I mean

nobody has a perfect democracy. We we

should know that by now. But uh uh but

South Korea has made the transition to

democracy. And yeah, so if you when you

when you go make that transition to

democracy and to a free society, you

realize that Churchill was right in his

famous cliche about democracy being the

worst of all systems except for the for

all the others. And South Korea has has

its you know its warts and its trouble

and you know follow the news and you

realize you know that it doesn't always

get the the best people to become

politicians but it is a successful

country. Now they are located in an

awkward part of the world of course

because they are a small country right

to a very big other country and that

always is a is a tricky situation to be

I mean I studied Ireland for in my

younger days and you know that's was a

small country right next to a bigger

country and it didn't always work very

well for them. Um, Korea has been able,

thanks in part through American support,

uh, to pull itself up from its poverty.

We're talking about the southern party,

not the northern part. And, um, I think

they should, I see no particular reason

why that can't continue uh, uh, except

for the sort of threat of demography

which I talked about.

All right. The next question comes from

uh the outlet Dzite in Hamburg, Germany.

Question is, do you believe that the

exploration of history should play a

larger role in economics and how could

this be achieved?

Well, it is already playing a larger

role in in economics. I'm I'm proud to

say that here at Northwestern we have u seven

seven

scholars who are basically full-time

economic historians on the faculty and

then a number of people around who still

work in the field and hang around like

my friend Lu Kaine in the audience

there. um uh it is becoming a very

popular field in economics and and and

it's not just that we have more and more

interest in the past but I think there

are other things about economic history

once you that make that make it

attractive um economics in my lifetime

which is a long time um has changed in

the following sense theory is still very

much an important part of our field. But

I think by and large the center of

gravity has shifted from theoretical

work to empirical work and to you know

big data some smaller data but you know

empirical work has gotten much more I

think respect than it did 40 or 50 years

ago. Now economic history of course is

you know by its very nature an empirical

field but it's also has been I think

exceptionally been able to take

advantage of new data collection and

data generation techniques that are be

coming online and are getting better uh

every year and so the fact that both

graduate students and young faculty uh

are flowing to u economic history is I

think a sign of the times not only in

that people are interested in the past,

which I sincerely hope they do, but also

because the op the options of generating

and and collecting data that uh weren't

available before are becoming online and

nobody has done more to create that than

my colleague Joe Ferry who's sitting in

the back and Joe

essentially was one of the first pioneers

pioneers

in uh using very large samples of data

taken from the full count American

censuses in order to study American

mobility and many other aspects uh that

require large data sets. So I think

economic history has a bright future and

I am uh imploring all major economics

departments that do not have a full-time

economic historian uh on in their ranks.

Um I won't name them by name but

Princeton and Penn are among them. uh

uh to hire uh a young economic historian

which we are producing every year and

they are we have three of them on the

market this year and I will do all I can

to persuade these universities to hire

my students.

Excellent. All right. Uh the next

question comes from uh the Associated

Press. You have often spoken positively

about technological innovation. How are

you feeling about AI, which as you know

has sparked concerns about everything

from the elimination of jobs to darker

scenarios like whether it could develop

deadly viruses?

Well, my day wouldn't be complete if I

didn't have a question about AI. I think

wherever I go, people ask me questions

about AI. Um,

it's a tool, a notion that somehow AI is

this monstrosity that lurks, you know,

somewhere beneath us and they will

eventually come and, you know, drive the

human race into extinction and take over

the planet. I mean, this is these people

have read too much dystopian science

fiction. Nothing of the sort is ever

going to happen. In fact, the whole idea

that machines are in more intelligent

than we are seems to assume that

intelligence is a single metric uh in

which we sort of measure a machine's IQ

and compare it to I but this that's

complete nonsense. I mean of course

human intelligence is multi-dimensional

um and it's always been the case that we

use machines to do things that we can't

do ourselves because our senses and the

size of our brain aren't good enough.

Okay. So we uh we can't see bacteria uh

either. So we build a microscope and we

see bacteria. We can't see the planets

of jup the moons of Jupiter. So um we

build a telescope and we see them. We

can't do zillions of calculations in a

second. So we have highowered computers.

Uh that doesn't make the computer more

intelligent. It just means that in a

particular dimension they can do things

that we can't. AI is an information

aggregator. Okay. It knows what we fed

it and it has access, you know, at at

very high speed. It can process it in in

ways that we tell it to do. But the

notion that they have human intelligence

that includes initiative and intuition

and ambition and things like that seems

to be really fancyful. And that's not, I

think, what's on the near horizon. I

mean who knows what's going to happen 50

years from now but at the moment that I

see AI primarily as a magnificent

research assistant and uh we've had

previous my you know my PC is a

wonderful research assistant uh for many

people doing research we have other new

tools that have come online power much

more powerful microscopes lasers all

kind of things that we use to do

research and what one lesson that you

could take away from the scientific

revolution of the 17th century is that

science advances when the tools that are

at the disposal of researchers are

getting better and that's basically

Galileo and his telescope and hook and

his microscope coming up with new

insight because they had better tools.

AI is another powerful tool and

everybody in this room unless I'm

terribly mistaken is using it in some

way and I'm as guilty as the next guy.

It hasn't. It's not sinking for me. It's

just, you know, giving access to

information much faster than I need it.

Uh sometimes the wrong information, but

you you got to be careful. But I don't

see AI as a threat to humanity. Now,

what will its effect be on the labor

market? And um there's 200 years of

history in which people have been

predicting that machines would kick us

all out of a job and turn us into this

sort of uh uh un reserve army of the

unemployed as Markx famously called it.

Um and though I a decade ago wrote an

article for the journal of economic

literature uh with two former students

pointing out that you know um so This

prediction was made over and over and

over again. There's actually very few

instances of long-term technological

unemployment in which people are being

thrown out of work and that is just

sitting there, you know, dazed on the

streets without ever having a job. Um it

is true of course that as technology

advances some occupations and some tasks

become mechanized and usually uh usually

these people find other jobs. Now

there's friction there and some people

for some people this maybe may be

difficult but I'll give you one example

of my own experience here at

Northwestern that will illustrate this.

When I came here in 1974, I was assigned

a secretary

and what the secretary did uh was

basically type. So I would give her a

manuscript and she would type it up and

then I would fix it and she would put

you know these white out and these sort

of white tapes in which she corrected it

and and then we go through four or five

iterations of like that and by the time

we were done it was a total mess but it

was typed and you could send it uh to a

journal and then one day word processing

came around

and uh you know we were told oh the

secretary will do no more typing you got

to do your own typing.

And so fine. So what happened to the

secretaries? And it turns out the

secretaries instead of becoming typist

became organizers.

They run things. They talk to students.

And you know I'll tell you a world in

which uh the professors type and the

secretaries talk to students is better

for the professors for the secretaries

and for the students. And so um in a way

the you know we we have about as many

secretaries in economics now as we had

at the time but I would never never even

imagine to ask one of them to do any of

my typing. Instead they run things for

us they organize things for us you know

and you know my sense is that probably

much more interesting and challenging

for them. I think that kind of

phenomenon is true across the labor

force. We the machines don't replace us.

they move us to more interesting, more

challenging work. And as AI moves us up

um to take these jobs over, people will

move to even higher jobs. So it's worth

pointing out perhaps and this is made an

argument made in great detail by my by

last year's uh Nobel Prize winner Daron

Smoglu. He said, you know, technological

change not only replaces people in, it

creates new tasks.

And um and I told him, you know, we were

talking about this paper. I said, you

know, my grandmother, you know, in 1910

was to be told that her great

grandchildren would be video game

programmers and cyber security experts.

She wouldn't have the foggiest idea what

we're talking about. what you know what

kind of jobs are these and I think just

as that was the case I think it's true

today we cannot imagine the new tasks

and jobs that will be uh necessary to

fill for people in the future but for

what you know for for just to make the

final point as I see it the main concern

about the labor market is not

technological unemployment it's labor scarcity

scarcity

that you know fewer and fewer people

entering the labor force, more and more

people are retiring and they sort of

there's this you know age hollowing out

in the sense that the people supposed to

pay their taxes and their social

security are disappearing and the people

who receive social security such as

myself uh their numbers are multiplying.

So for that you need some for some kind

of mechanism that will do the work and

if demography won't do it then

technology will have to do it. So my

sense is that that you know insight

uh from history is is um quite I think

important. Now I can't rule out

uh some dystopian outcome you know like

in this u

famous Kurt Vonagut model novel that I

read in graduate school called player

piano. Um it's a brilliant book and he

sort of describes this world in which

basically nobody's working anymore. You

can't rule that out because, you know,

who knows what the future will bring.

But John Maynard Kanes, the great

economist, once described

uh a world um called e it's a little

essay called economic prospects for our

grandchildren in which he talked about a 15hour

15hour

work week.

Well, I'm still waiting for that one.

Me, too.

Yes. So, we probably have time for one

more if there's anyone in the crowd. I

do have another one on my phone which I

left over on the other seat. So, I'm

going to get that while uh offer one

more opportunity for anyone who's here.

Okay, we do have one. All right. And if

you could speak up as you ask. Um uh

it's a little harder to hear up here.

All right, Deborah.

Sure. Hi. Hi, Joel. Congratulations.

I'm very curious about what your

solution to the demographic crisis is

because I know that yours is different

Yeah.

Did you Did you hear it? Yeah.

Could you repeat the question, Deborah?

My curiosity is my Don't fall off the

edge of the stage. My my curiosity is um

what is your solution for the

demographic uh crisis? And I was joking

that your solution is surely different

from Elon Musk's. Uh

in other words, let me just put a

I was told by the authorities in my residence

residence

not to stay away from politics

as much as I can. Um, and I already said

to somebody who interviewed me on the

phone today that when I when I heard

Nick Richard Nixon resign,

uh, I could I thought I would never

imagine a worse president possible and

I've had second thoughts about that one.

U, but that's as far as I'll say about

about politics. But look, I mean there

is I think a concern

which is not new either because we've

seen the same thing you know in the

guilded age that you know

extraordinarily rich people will have

undue influence on the political process

and that is the nature of a democratic

capital. No, no, no. What I'm asking

about demographic, the demographic

crisis and what your how you conceive of

the solution to the demographic crisis.

Well, the solution to the demographics,

that's a really tough one because this

is not a matter of policy. It's a matter

of individual decision makers who have decided

decided

to have smaller families and who are

capable of controlling their fertility.

It is not an American phenomenon. It's a

worldwide phenomenon. And u and so I

know there is a movement

called natalism which is trying to encourage

encourage

people to have more babies. And I'm not

actually persuaded as an economist that

that actually will make us better off.

If it is assuming that the decisions are

being made by people with good control

over their fertility, I can't see why I

as a policy maker or anybody else should

think of a society in which you know the

average family size is one child rather

than three or four. Why that be a worse

society? Remember, you know, the world

has grown enormously demographically

since 1945. You know, in 1950, we had

about half the population we have now.

Wasn't all that terrible. In fact,

everybody was really scared u uh about

some kind of Malthusian explosion of

population. So, if we're going to go

from eight billion to six billion, you

know, will it be will the planet really

get worse? I mean, it's hard to think

so. Uh

I don't think we'll ever get to a stage

in which demographic behavior will lead

us to extinction.

But I do um so there's this is a debate

I'm having with some fairly learned

colleagues who worried about that. Um, I

know of no theory in economics that says

what is the optimal population of the

world or even the optimal population of

any specific country.

What I do think is that the distribution

of population over the over the world

today may not be optimal and that the

fact that you know you should really

allow people across the world to move if

they want to move and the notion that

somehow the United States is full or

Canada is full is reasonable right I

mean countries aren't full I lived in

Israel for years you know it's very it's

very crowded. You know, people manage,

you know, there's bigger traffic jams,

but then so what? I lived in the I was

born in the Netherlands, even more

crowded. Yeah. Okay. And then you can go

and, you know, and live in a country u

which is you know very large and underpopulated.

underpopulated.

Uh so I mean does that make a country

good or bad? I mean it's Canada relative

to its surface is a very small

population. doesn't seem to have

affected quality of life in Canada. So I

don't actually think that the

demographic um problem is is is an

existential one. Where it gets to be

existential is that in the transition

from a larger to a smaller population,

the age distribution changes. And when

the age distribution changes, you may

have a problem of u you know the

actuarial nature of the social security

system which is what every country is

facing. And um I just heard today on on

on on the radio that you know Mron's m

biggest achievement was to raise the age

of retirement in France which are now

trying to to undo but that is the kind

of change that we can adjustment that we

can make when the population changes and

when there's too many old for guys

around and too few people working that I

think is is is a fair criticism but I

must A world that has half the

population that it is today doesn't

for this right here. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right. I think I'm gonna uh bring

Dean Randolph back up here for a quick

toast if that's all right.

Either way.

Can I invite Jeff Elie, chair of the

department of economics, and Kevin Bole,

chair of the department of history, and Maggalite,

Maggalite,

I don't know where she is, up to the stage,

stage,

Oh, celebratory. [Applause]

Come on then.

Yeah. And then why don't you come in

here? Maybe I'll get I think you'll have

the cluster. So maybe I'll speak uh

start speaking. Uh Joel

uh as we get our charge our uh flutes

with bubbly uh on behalf of the

president uh your colleagues Weineberg

College uh we just want to express our

extraordinary pride in your achievement.

Uh I hope that in the coming days that

you revel in reflecting on your career

and thinking back to all the people who

have made this possible and I understand

I think you'll be the first to

acknowledge as you did. It's the

students, the colleagues, the colleagues

at other institutions that sustain the

type of work you've produced throughout

your career and is being recognized

today. Uh we could not be happier that

it happened to such a wonderful

colleague and friend as you and again

speaking for your departments. Uh

congratulations and we have a tradition

in Weineberg College uh which I hope you

will indulge me with where we raise our

glasses and have three chairs. So, hip hip

hip hooray.

hooray.

Hip hip hooray.

hooray.

Hip hip hooray.

hooray.

So, thank you all for coming. With that,

that is the end of the formal ceremony.

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YouTube Transcript:Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences | Northwestern Press Conference

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Joel Mokyr, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences | Northwestern Press Conference