By Priyank Narayan

Every October, the Nobel announcements remind us that “ideas move the world”. This year the prize picks up a central question: why do some economies grow persistently while others stagnate?

The answer is simple and yet hard. Growth doesn’t come from capital alone. It comes from innovation, technologies, and new ways of doing things. It grows when systems (read institutions) and societies learn how to learn. The laureates —Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt—were recognised for having explained “innovation-driven economic growth”. A deceptively simple citation, but one that carries profound lessons for how we think about education, entrepreneurship, and the architecture of our universities.

Mokyr, the economic historian, looked backwards to understand progr

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