New Delhi, Dec. 2 -- Two centuries of sustained growth has transformed living standards. In the US and UK, GDP per capita more than doubled every generation, a cumulative twentyfold increase. What accounts for such massive growth? Technological change.

Consider telephones: from rotary dials to smartphones, each leap has been creative. But it's also destructive, as each new phone outmodes its predecessor. This year's Nobel Prize in Economics honours the scholars who decoded this paradox. How did sustained economic growth begin and how did it continue despite the disruption it causes? The answers carry profound implications.

Laureate Joel Mokyr notes that technological innovation alone can't explain economic growth because technological c...