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The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics has been awarded to American-Israeli Joel Mokyr, France’s Philippe Aghion, and Canada’s Peter Howitt for their pioneering research explaining how technological innovation sustains long-term economic growth, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday.
The Academy said Mokyr received one half of the award "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress," while Aghion and Howitt shared the other half "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction." Their combined research provides a foundation for understanding how continuous innovation reshapes economies, industries, and living standards over time.
John Hassler, chair of the prize committee, said their work explains how economies maintain momentum through innovation rather than stagnating after periods of rapid expansion. The concept of "creative destruction," central to Aghion and Howitt’s theory, describes how new technologies replace outdated ones, creating both opportunities and disruptions in the process.
Mokyr, 79, a professor of economics and history at Northwestern University in the United States, has long explored the historical underpinnings of Europe’s industrial and technological development between 1750 and 1914. His historical analyses helped identify why sustained growth became "the new normal" in modern economies.
Aghion, 69, teaches at both the College de France and the London School of Economics, and his work focuses on the dynamics of innovation and competition in driving productivity. Howitt, 79, a professor at Brown University, has concentrated his research on macroeconomics and monetary economics, complementing Aghion’s theoretical framework.
The Nobel Prize in Economics—formally known as the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel"—was established in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank, decades after Alfred Nobel’s original five prizes. Although sometimes criticized as a "false Nobel," it follows the same selection process as the original awards in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace.
This year’s award concludes the 2025 Nobel season, which also recognized advances in immunology, quantum mechanics, and molecular science. The Nobel Peace Prize went to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, while the literature prize was awarded to Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai.
The laureates will receive their gold medals, diplomas, and a $1.2 million prize at the annual Nobel ceremony in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10 — the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
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