Trio Wins Economics Nobel for Research on Technology-Driven Growth

The Nobel Prize in Economics Was Awarded on Monday to American-Israeli Scholar Joel Mokyr, France’s Philippe Aghion, and Canada’s Peter Howitt for Their Groundbreaking Research on the Role of Technology in Sustained Economic Growth.

According to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Mokyr, 79, received half of the prize “for identifying the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress.” Aghion, 69, and Howitt, 79, shared the other half “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”

John Hassler, chair of the prize committee, told reporters that their work addressed key questions about how technological innovation fuels economic growth and how such growth can be sustained over time.

Mokyr, a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, “used historical sources to uncover why sustained growth became the new normal,” the Academy said in its statement.

Aghion and Howitt’s research expanded on the concept of “creative destruction,” the process through which new and improved products replace older ones, leading to both innovation and market disruption.

The economics prize is the only Nobel not included among the original five established by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896. It was created later, in 1968, through a donation from the Swedish central bank—prompting critics to label it “a false Nobel.”

However, like the prizes in physics and chemistry, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences selects the laureates using the same rigorous process.

This year’s Nobel season also celebrated breakthroughs in understanding the human immune system, advances in quantum mechanics, and the creation of new molecular structures.

The literature prize was awarded to Hungarian author László Krasznahorkai for his works exploring postmodern dystopia and melancholy, while Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado received the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.

In a surprising gesture, Machado dedicated her award to U.S. President Donald Trump, who has previously expressed that he believed he deserved the honor himself.

The Nobel Economics Prize Includes a Diploma, a Gold Medal, and a $1.2 Million Check. The laureates will receive their awards at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10—the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.