Economics 2025 · Announced Oct 13
Why some economies keep growing: new ideas, and the old giving way.
Half to Mokyr, half shared by Aghion and Howitt
In plain words
Mokyr, a historian, showed what let growth keep going after the Industrial Revolution: science and know-how feeding each other. Aghion and Howitt built the math of creative destruction, where new firms and products push out old ones.
Why it matters
Growth is not automatic. It needs openness to new ideas and room for change, and it can stall when those are lost.
The official reason
"for having explained innovation-driven economic growth"
33
years from the Aghion–Howitt growth model (1992) to the prize
The long road
- 1990Mokyr publishes The Lever of Riches.
- 1992Aghion and Howitt publish their model of growth through creative destruction.
- 2002Mokyr publishes The Gifts of Athena.
- 2025Prize in Economic Sciences.