Late Friday morning: the weekend is about to begin. Prof. Joel Mokyr (79) arrives, as usual, at his office in Evanston, Illinois, on the third floor of Northwestern University’s huge new Kellog School of Management building. Three weeks earlier, Mokyr was announced as a recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics – he claims this came as a great surprise. He had never imagined he would be the next Nobel Prize winner. His office door is still covered with balloons, paper ribbons and, mainly, dozens of notes from students and colleagues sharing in his joy at winning the world’s most prestigious academic prize.
