Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr Awarded 2025 Nobel Prize

Philippe Aghion, research associate Peter Howitt, and NBER board member Joel Mokyr have been awarded the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.” The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in announcing the prize, explained that their studies have illuminated the process by which “new products and production methods [replace] old ones in a never-ending cycle. This is the basis for sustained economic growth, which results in a better standard of living…” The prize-winning research has emphasized the critical role of economic institutions in determining the impact of new innovations and provided essential insights on the dynamics of creative destruction.

Aghion is a professor at the College de France and INSEAD. He was an NBER research associate, affiliated with the Economic Fluctuations and Growth (EFG) program, for more than a decade when he was on the Harvard University faculty. Howitt, a professor of economics and the Lyn Crost Professor of Social Sciences at Brown University, is a research associate in the EFG program. Mokyr is the Robert H. Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics and history at Northwestern University. He is also the Sackler Professor at the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at the University of Tel Aviv. For more than three decades, he has been a member of the NBER Board of Directors, representing Northwestern University.

In announcing the prize, the Academy released a detailed account the laureates’ scientific contributions. 

With this year’s awards, 43 current or past NBER research affiliates, and an additional seven current or past members of the NBER Board of Directors, have received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Affiliates awarded the prize are Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, 2025; Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson, 2024; Claudia Goldin, 2023; Ben Bernanke and Douglas Diamond, 2022; Joshua Angrist, David Card, and Guido Imbens, 2021; Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Michael Kremer, 2019; William Nordhaus and Paul Romer, 2018; Richard Thaler, 2017; Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström, 2016; Angus Deaton, 2015; Lars Hansen and Robert Shiller, 2013; Alvin Roth, 2012; Thomas Sargent and Christopher Sims, 2011; Peter Diamond, 2010; Paul Krugman, 2008; Finn Kydland, 2004; Robert F. Engle, 2003; Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2001; James J. Heckman and Daniel L. McFadden, 2000; Robert C. Merton and Myron S. Scholes, 1997; Robert E. Lucas, Jr., 1995; and the late Dale Mortensen, 2010; Edward C. Prescott, 2004; Robert W. Fogel, 1993; Gary S. Becker, 1992; George J. Stigler, 1982; Theodore W. Schultz, 1979; Milton Friedman, 1976; and Simon Kuznets, 1971. In addition to this group, the seven current or past NBER directors who have received the prize are: Joel Mokyr, 2025; George Akerlof, 2001; and the late William Vickrey, 1996; Douglass North, 1993; Robert Solow, 1987; James Tobin, 1981; and Paul Samuelson, 1970.