2026-07-08
46 分钟For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, Hello, everyone,
and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
Today I'm chatting with Joel Mokir.
Joel is a professor at Northwestern University.
He has a wonderful new book out called Two Paths to Prosperity, Culture and Institutions in Europe
and China, 1000 to 2000. And he is one of the economics Nobel laureates from this past year.
Joel, welcome.
Thank you, Tyler.
Start by telling us, in the book,
your thesis is about European corporations versus Chinese clans and the importance of that difference.
How would you explain it?
Well, the difference is basically the kind of...
Organizations that produce what we call local public goods.
So things like poor relief and education, religious service and things like that.
I would think that if you look at the world,
say around 800 at the time of Charlemagne, the difference between Europe and China isn't very large.
But at some point during the Middle Ages, you can see this divergence getting started.
And what's happening is that in Europe, there is more and more of a decline
in the extended family or the extended kinship group, or we call it clan.
And instead, people get together and cooperate.