Economics Nobel Prize winners showed how science boosts growth

Economics Nobel prize won by researchers who showed how science boosts growth

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt share economics prize for work that underlines the importance of investing in research and development.

L to R: Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.
Credit: Northwestern University, Patrick Imbert/Collège de France, Ashley McCabe/Brown University

The 2025 Sveriges Riksbank Prize for Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel has been awarded to three researchers who have shown how technological and scientific innovation, coupled to market competition, drive economic growth.

One half of the prize goes to Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The other half is split between the economic theorists Philippe Aghion at the Collège de France in Paris and the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Peter Howitt at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

“I can’t find the words to express what I feel,” Aghion told the press conference. He added that he will use the money for research in his laboratory at the Collège de France.

The award “underlies the importance in investing in science for innovation and long-term economic growth”, says economist Diane Coyle at the University of Cambridge, UK. “It’s great to see the Nobel prize recognize the importance of this topic,” adds Richard Jones, an innovation-policy researcher at the University of Manchester, UK. “It’s important that economists understand the conditions that lead to technological progress,” he adds. The winners, says Coyle, “have long been on people’s list of potential candidates”.

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