Joel Mokyr

Technological progress, far from being a simple cumulative process, is often erratic and unpredictable.

The difference between rich and poor societies often rests on the choices made about innovation and adaptation.

Economic growth is above all an exercise in creative adaptation.

The absence of technological progress means stagnation, whatever else a society may have achieved.

Inventions are not isolated events; they are parts of clusters and networks.

The supply of useful knowledge is the lever of riches.

Institutions either encourage or discourage the diffusion of innovation.

Obstacles to technological change are as important as the incentives for it.

The history of technology is a history of both breakthroughs and missed opportunities.

Societies fail to develop not because they lack imagination, but because they lack incentives and institutions.

The economic impact of innovation depends as much on its diffusion as on its invention.

Technological creativity is not evenly distributed across time or space.