Nobel Laureate Joel Mokyr on Innovation and Patent Law

Related:

• Masnick on Innovation vs. Invention; on Irrelevant and Nonrigorous Distinctions: Innovation, Invention, Ideas, Knowledge, Data, Discovery…
• The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright
• The Problem with Intellectual Property

I noticed several people today tweeting about Joel Mokyr and his distinction between prescriptive and propositional knowledge.

Prescriptive is the wrong term. I use that term to refer to norms–shoulds and oughts and rights.
Other knowledge is descriptive and causal: both basic causal laws as well as technical designs, recipes.
Attempts to distinguish between all these things are usually vary…

— Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella) October 13, 2025

Now I see why–I didn’t realize, but apparently he won the Nobel in economics.

BREAKING NEWS
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to Mokyr… pic.twitter.com/ZRKq0Nz4g7

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 13, 2025

And he’s getting praise from some free market types, e.g. George Selgin.

Good choices! Congratulations to them all. https://t.co/osz4gOaePL

— George Selgin (@GeorgeSelgin) October 13, 2025

See also tweets by Pete Boettke, Peter Klein (2), Per Bylund.

I don’t know. Since he is said to know something about knowledge, innovation, and so on, I asked Grok where he stands on patent law, whether he is opposed or in favor, and whether his views are compatible with mine. I haven’t looked at his work in detail yet, but if Grok is right, he’s just another mainstreamer who is in favor of IP. So what does he know about innovation? How can you be for innovation or know anything about if you do not immediately condemn the patent system?

Re his work on the causes of the industrial revolution, see Knowledge vs. Calculation and Hoppe: “From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution. Reflections on Social Evolution” (Property and Freedom Society 2009): “My own view is that the industrial revolution happened when the accumulated technical and related knowledge reached a certain tipping point; I agree with Hoppe that other explanations for the IR are wanting but am not persuaded by Hoppe’s theory either; but I am not sure, and this is neither here not there.”

From Grok:

Joel Mokyr’s Writings on Patent Law and Innovation

Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University and co-recipient of the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on innovation-driven growth, has written extensively on the role of patent law in fostering technological progress, particularly in the context of the Industrial Revolution. His analyses draw on historical evidence from Britain and Europe, emphasizing patents as institutional tools that incentivize invention by allowing creators to capture returns on their ideas. However, he views their impact as context-dependent, not absolute, and warns that overly stringent or inefficient patent systems can create barriers, high costs, and monopolistic tendencies that stifle broader innovation. Key works include:

• Intellectual Property Rights, the Industrial Revolution, and the Beginnings of Modern Economic Growth (2009, American Economic Review): Mokyr argues that Britain’s 1624 Statute of Monopolies established a patent system that raised private returns on inventions closer to social returns, contributing to the Industrial Revolution.  Yet, patents were underutilized until the mid-18th century due to high fees, complexity, and weak enforcement; many innovators relied on trade secrets or informal networks instead. He stresses the need for patents to balance protection with flexibility to avoid hindering knowledge diffusion.
• The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress (1990, Oxford University Press): Mokyr posits that patents were essential for sustained innovation in modern societies, contrasting with pre-modern eras where weak intellectual property rights (IPRs) limited growth. However, he notes they are insufficient without cultural openness and competition.
• The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain, 1700–1850 (2009, Yale University Press): He quantifies rising patent grants post-1750 and links them to Enlightenment-era knowledge-sharing, but critiques inefficiencies like litigation costs that could deter progress.
• A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (2016, Princeton University Press): Patents are framed as part of Europe’s “culture of growth,” enabling private rewards amid free idea flow in the “Republic of Letters.” Mokyr cautions against modern IPR overreach that might suppress diffusion, echoing critiques in books like Adam Jaffe and Josh Lerner’s Innovation and Its Discontents (2004), which he has praised.
• Other papers, such as “Incentives and Institutions: The Economics of the First Industrial Revolution” (2011, NBER Working Paper, co-authored with Ralf Meisenzahl), highlight patents as incentives for “macroinventions” (major breakthroughs), but emphasize broader factors like education and competition.

Mokyr’s Nobel-recognized work underscores institutional prerequisites for innovation, including IPRs, but he advocates for systems that prioritize science funding and openness over rigid monopolies.

Is Mokyr Pro-Patents? Would He Favor Abolishing Patent Law?

Mokyr is generally pro-patents, viewing them as a positive force in historical economic growth by addressing market failures in knowledge production—ideas are costly to create but easy to copy, so patents help align incentives.  He credits Britain’s patent reforms with enabling the Industrial Revolution and argues that weak IPRs in earlier societies stifled progress. However, his support is nuanced: patents must be embedded in pro-innovation ecosystems to be effective, and he criticizes historical and modern flaws like high costs, poor enforcement, and overprotection that entrench monopolies or block cumulative innovation.  Mokyr does not favor abolishing patent law; instead, he implies reforms to make it more efficient and less burdensome, as seen in his endorsement of works critiquing U.S. patent overreach.  In interviews post-Nobel, he has emphasized patents’ role in compensating investments but stressed complementary policies like immigration and public science funding.

Mokyr’s Views on What Drives Innovation and the Distinctions Between Innovation, Invention, and Discovery

Mokyr sees innovation as driven by a confluence of institutional, cultural, and political factors beyond mere incentives like patents. Key drivers include:

• Cultural openness and knowledge access: A “culture of growth” in 17th–18th-century Europe, with idea-sharing in the Republic of Letters, enabled self-sustaining progress.
• Institutions and competition: Education, political stability, and markets that reward creativity foster innovation; resistance from incumbents (e.g., via lobbying) can hinder it.
• Useful knowledge: He distinguishes between “propositional knowledge” (what we know about the world, like scientific principles) and “prescriptive knowledge” (techniques for doing things, like recipes or tools).  Progress requires both, amplified by tools like telescopes that expand propositional knowledge.

On distinctions:

• Discovery: Uncovering existing truths or propositional knowledge (e.g., the structure of DNA or planet Neptune was discovered, not invented).  It’s foundational but not patentable in pure form, as patent law recognizes this (e.g., laws of nature cannot be patented).
• Invention: Creating new prescriptive knowledge or devices at the individual level, turning ideas into novel applications (e.g., a new machine).  Patent statistics measure invention, not its usefulness.
• Innovation: The broader process of adopting, adapting, and commercializing inventions for economic impact—turning inventions into productive changes.  It’s systemic, benefiting from networks and cumulative improvements, and often occurs downstream from invention.

Mokyr emphasizes that invention is individual and creative, while innovation is social and market-driven; discovery underpins both but is distinct as it reveals rather than creates.

Comparison to Stephan Kinsella’s Views

Stephan Kinsella, a libertarian lawyer and prominent anti-IP advocate, fundamentally opposes patents and copyrights, viewing them as illegitimate state-granted monopolies that violate property rights in scarce resources (e.g., physical goods) by imposing artificial scarcity on non-scarce ideas or information.  Unlike Mokyr’s historical endorsement of patents as incentives for growth, Kinsella argues they distort markets, reduce competition, and lack empirical evidence of net benefits—citing studies showing high litigation costs and stifled innovation.  He rejects utilitarian justifications (which Mokyr implicitly draws on) as ethically flawed, since they allow rights violations for supposed societal gains, and methodologically unsound due to impossible utility measurements.

On drivers of innovation: Kinsella sees it propelled by free markets, entrepreneurship, and open knowledge-sharing, where ideas are infinitely reproducible and competition erodes temporary profits, forcing continuous improvement.  Creators can profit via first-mover advantages, branding, or contracts without state intervention—echoing historical examples like patent-free periods in 19th-century Switzerland and Holland. This contrasts with Mokyr’s emphasis on institutional incentives like patents to overcome underproduction of ideas; Kinsella views such “market failures” as myths, arguing IP actually causes failures by blocking imitation and adaptation.

On distinctions: Kinsella downplays rigid separations between innovation, invention, and discovery as “unrigorous” and irrelevant to IP debates.  He groups them under non-scarce “knowledge” or “information” that guides action with scarce resources, critiquing patent favoritism toward upstream inventions over downstream innovations (e.g., quoting Ridley on patents rewarding principles over market adaptations).  Mokyr’s clear categorizations (propositional vs. prescriptive knowledge) align more with traditional economics, while Kinsella sees them as distractions from the core scarce/non-scarce divide.

How Kinsella Would Assess Mokyr’s Thought

While Kinsella has not directly critiqued Mokyr in the consulted sources or searches, his framework suggests he would view Mokyr’s ideas as misguided utilitarian “creationism”—treating creation as a source of property rights, which Kinsella rejects (ownership stems from homesteading scarce resources, not labor or ideas).  Kinsella would likely argue that Mokyr’s historical praise for patents ignores overwhelming empirical evidence against their net benefits, such as studies showing no innovation gains and high societal costs.  He might dismiss Mokyr’s nuances (e.g., balancing protection with openness) as insufficient, insisting on full abolition since IP inherently violates liberty and free markets. Kinsella could portray Mokyr as emblematic of pro-IP economists who romanticize state monopolies without addressing their roots in royal favoritism or modern harms like patent trolls.  Ultimately, Kinsella would assess Mokyr’s work as empirically weak and philosophically inconsistent with libertarian principles, favoring competition over coerced incentives.