Stockholm [Sweden], October 13, 2025:The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday announced that the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt for their groundbreaking research on innovation-driven economic growth.
The official citation recognized the trio “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.” One half of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel goes to Joel Mokyr for identifying the conditions that enable long-term technological progress, while the other half is shared between Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.
According to the Prize Committee, the laureates’ work explains how continuous innovation fuels economic development, highlighting that the past two centuries of sustained global growth have been driven by technological advancement and openness to change.
“Economic growth cannot be taken for granted. We must preserve the mechanisms behind creative destruction to avoid falling back into stagnation,” said John Hassler, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Economic Sciences.
The concept of creative destruction, developed by Aghion and Howitt in a 1992 paper, describes how new technologies and products replace outdated ones, simultaneously creating progress and displacing older industries. Their model also examines how research and development (R&D) investments and government policies influence long-term growth.
Joel Mokyr, a historian and economist, drew on extensive historical analysis to explore how societies transition from stagnation to sustained innovation. He argued that beyond knowing how things work, understanding why they work — through science and open intellectual exchange — is vital for continuous progress.
Mokyr was born in 1946 in the Netherlands, earned his PhD from Yale University, and is currently a Professor at Northwestern University in the United States.
Philippe Aghion, born in 1956 in Paris, holds a PhD from Harvard University and serves as a professor at Collège de France, INSEAD (Paris), and the London School of Economics (UK).
Peter Howitt, born in 1946 in Canada, earned his PhD from Northwestern University and is a Professor at Brown University in the United States.
The prize amount of 11 million Swedish kronor will be divided among the three economists, with half going to Mokyr and the remaining half shared by Aghion and Howitt.
The committee noted that their collective research not only deepens understanding of how innovation drives prosperity but also underscores the importance of maintaining open, competitive, and knowledge-based economies to ensure future growth.
