Nobel economics prize awarded for innovation-growth theory

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt won the 2025 Nobel economics prize for “having explained innovation-driven economic growth,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said Monday.

1news.media reports, citing CNN, the prestigious award, formally known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, is the final prize to be given out this year and is worth 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).

“The laureates have taught us that sustained growth cannot be taken for granted. Economic stagnation, not growth, has been the norm for most of human history. Their work shows that we must be aware of, and counteract, threats to continued growth,” the prize-awarding body said in a statement.

Mokyr is a professor at Northwestern University, in Evanston in the United States, while Aghion is professor at the College de France and INSEAD, in Paris, and at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in Britain. Howitt is a professor at Brown University, in Providence in the US.

Mokyr was awarded half the prize, with the other half being shared between Aghion and Howitt.

“Joel Mokyr used historical observations to identify the factors necessary for sustained growth based on technological innovations,” John Hassler, member of the Nobel Committee, said.

“Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt produced a mathematical model of creative destruction, an endless process in which new and better products replace the old.”