New Delhi, Oct. 13 -- Economic historian Joel Mokyr has been awarded the Nobel Prize for economics this year along with Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt. All three have done stellar work to understand the role of innovation in economic growth.

A few days before the announcement of the prize, an essay on China's economic model by Dan Wang and Arthur Kroeber brought Mokyr's ideas to mind. The two authors wrote about how one of the most subtle sources of strength in that country is the process knowledge embedded in its vast industrial labour force. This was practical knowledge that has been learned from experience, on how to make things and keep improving them.

"This process knowledge enables iterative innovation, or constantly tweaking pr...