Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt

Economists Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt were awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics on Monday “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth”.

One half of the prize was awarded to Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

The other half was awarded jointly to Aghion and Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction”, it added.

Over the last two centuries, the world has seen sustained economic growth for the first time in history, the academy said in a press release. This has lifted vast numbers out of poverty and laid the foundation of prosperity, it added.

The three laureates explained how innovation facilitates progress, the academy said.

Mokyr used historical sources to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal, the academy said.

“He demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why,” it added.

Aghion and Howitt also studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth. They constructed a mathematical model for “creative destruction” – when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out.

“The innovation represents something new and is...

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