Where growth comes from: Nobelists stress pragmatism and progress culture

What is economic growth, and from what does it emerge? Is it simply an accumulation of more material, more inputs, more natural resources, and more labour and capital? Is it a product basically of technological progress, or is there something even more subtle at work?

 

That should be a core question for the discipline of economics, but surprisingly few Nobel Prizes have been awarded to those who ask it. When Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt were given the prize this year, they joined a very short list. Only Simon Kuznets in 1971 and