The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth”.
One half of the prize will go to Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Aghion and Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”
Joel Mokyr used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal. Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt also studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth. In an article from 1992, they constructed a mathematical model for what is called creative destruction: when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out, the Nobel Committee said in a media release.
The Netherlands-born Joel Mokyr is Professor at Northwestern University, United States, while Philippe Aghion is Professor at Collège de France and INSEAD, Paris, and The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. Peter Howitt is Professor at Brown University, United States.
Last year’s award went to three economists — Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson — whose studies explained why some countries are rich and others poor.
Formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Economics Nobel was established in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank.
The award, though technically not a Nobel Prize, is presented together with the others on December 10, the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel. The prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million cheque.
Nobel announcements kicked off last week with the prize for medicine or physiology announced on October 6, followed by physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
Published – October 13, 2025 03:21 pm IST
