2025 Nobel Prize in Economics awarded for research into innovation

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt for their work shedding light on the mechanisms of innovation-driven economic growth. The award was presented by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and comes with a prize of US$1.2 million (approximately €1 million). Mokyr receives half of the prize, with Aghion and Howitt sharing the other half.

The committee praised their contribution to understanding why growth does not happen automatically, but depends on continuous technological progress. Mokyr drew on history in his research to identify the conditions that enable long-term, innovation-based growth.

Aghion and Howitt developed the model of “creative destruction”—the process by which new technologies replace outdated solutions and thus keep the economy moving.

The award underscores the importance of innovation as a driver of progress and warns against taking economic growth for granted. The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences was only established in 1969 and traditionally concludes the annual awards, which also include medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, and peace.

(reuters, max)