Overview

• The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half of the 11 million SEK prize to Joel Mokyr and the other half jointly to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.
• Mokyr’s historical research shows that sustained progress depends on scientific understanding of why innovations work and on societies remaining open to new ideas.
• Aghion and Howitt formalized the process of creative destruction in a 1992 model, explaining how new products and firms displace older ones and why this process creates conflicts to be managed.
• Committee chair John Hassler said growth cannot be taken for granted and urged preserving the conditions that enable creative destruction to prevent a slide back to stagnation.
• Reacting to the award, Aghion urged Europe to align competition rules with targeted industrial policy in areas like defense, climate, AI and biotech, criticized rising protectionism, and said he may invest prize funds in research.