New Delhi, Oct. 21 -- This year's Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded "for having explained innovation-driven economic growth," with one half to Joel Mokyr "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress" and the other half jointly to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction."

This Nobel Prize in economics awarded for innovation comes at an interesting time in the political history of the world. Much of the world today is dominated by what authors Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way call "competitive authoritarianism." Levitsky and Way define it as a hybrid regime where democratic institutions exi...