Innovation, Institutions, and Creative Destruction: Explaining the 2025 Economics Nobel
The Sveriges Riksbank (Nobel Prize) Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was given to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt on October 13, 2025, "for having explained innovation-driven economic growth." Mokyr got half of the prize, and Aghion and Howitt split the other half. Why these three? Joel Mokyr is an economic historian whose research explains why long-term, self-reinforcing growth happened when and where it did. Mokyr contends that growth is fundamentally rooted in a cultural and institutional framework that incentivises curiosity, accommodates dissent, and transforms valuable knowledge into practical techniques and tools. His research connects the Enlightenment's faith in progress, the simultaneous development of science and engineering, and the rise of mechanical skills to the Industrial Revolution's departure from thousands of years of almost no growth. Mokyr succinctly delineates the prerequisites for sustained, innovation-driven ...