Oct 15,2025: The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was jointly awarded to Joel Mokyr (Netherlands), Philippe Aghion(Paris), and Peter Howitt(Canada) for explaining innovation-driven economic growth and how societies must counter stagnation to sustain development.
Laureates and Core Contribution:
Joel Mokyr received one-half of the prize for identifying prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.
Mokyr used historical data to reveal why sustained technological innovation is vital for continuous economic growth.
Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt shared the other half of the theory of sustained growth via creative destruction.
Aghion and Howitt developed a mathematical model describing “creative destruction,” where new products and technologies replace outdated ones, propelling economic expansion.
Significance of the Research:
The work explains why the past two centuries experienced consistent global economic growth, improving living standards and well-being worldwide.
It disrupts the assumption that economic growth is automatic, emphasizing the fragility of progress and the necessity to maintain innovation-driven mechanisms.
Implications and Policy Insights:
Their research highlights the importance for regions like Europe to integrate competition with proactive industrial policy, learning from examples like the US and China.
The theory underscores the need for economies to encourage continuous innovation and adaptation for sustained prosperity
