STOCKHOLM: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.”
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025 to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to:
Joel Mokyr
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, Eitan Berglas School of Economics, Tel Aviv University, Israel “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress”
and the other half jointly to:
Philippe Aghion
Collège de France and INSEAD, Paris, France, The London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
Peter Howitt
Brown University, Providence, RI, USA “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”
They show how new technology can drive sustained growth.
Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth. This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year’s laureates in economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress.
Technology advances rapidly and affects us all, with new products and production methods replacing old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth, which results in a better standard of living, health and quality of life for people around the globe.
However, this was not always the case. Quite the opposite – stagnation was the norm throughout most of human history. Despite important discoveries now and again, which sometimes led to improved living conditions and higher incomes, growth always eventually levelled off.
Joel Mokyr used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal. He demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why. The latter was often lacking prior to the industrial revolution, which made it difficult to build upon new discoveries and inventions. He also emphasised the importance of society being open to new ideas and allowing change.
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 innovation represents something new and is thus creative. However, it is also destructive, as the company whose technology becomes passé is outcompeted.
In different ways, the laureates show how creative destruction creates conflicts that must be managed in a constructive manner. Otherwise, innovation will be blocked by established companies and interest groups that risk being put at a disadvantage.
“The laureates’ work shows that economic growth cannot be taken for granted. We must uphold the mechanisms that underly creative destruction, so that we do not fall back into stagnation,” says John Hassler, Chair of the Committee for the prize in economic sciences.
Hungarian novelist and screenwriter László Krasznahorkai was awarded on Thursday (8th Oct, 2025) the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025, “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre that, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art.”
The Nobel Prize has taken to the X to state: “This year’s Nobel Prize laureate in literature László Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition that extends through Kafka and Thomas Bernhard, and is characterised by absurdism and grotesque excess“. László Krasznahorkai, who has written five novels, has been awarded a number of coveted prizes, including 2015 Man Booker International Prize.
Susumu Kitagawa (Kyoto University), Richard Robson (University of Melbourne) and Jordanian-American Omar Yaghi (University of California, Berkeley) have been awarded on Wednesday (8th Oct) the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
They were awarded Nobel for the development of metal-organic frameworks (a form of molecular architecture that packs vast amounts of space into tiny structures, porous material roughly the size of a small sugar cube could contain as much surface area as a large football pitch.
Son of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Yaghi maintained that Science was the greatest equalising force in the world. He was born to Palestinian refugees in Jordan, where his family shared a one-room home with the cattle the family was raising. “My parents could barely read or write. It’s been quite a journey, science allows you to do it.”
Yaghi found a book on molecules in the library and it was the commencement of a life-long love of chemistry. Talking to journalists at the Nobel Presser, Susumu Kitagawa said: “My dream is to capture air and separate air to (for instance, in CO2 or oxygen or water or something) and convert this to useful materials using renewable energy.”
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded on Friday (10th Oct, 2025) to the 58-year-old Opposition Leader María Coria Machado for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Taking to X María Coria Machado stated: “This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom. We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy. I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support for our cause!”
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