Aghion, 69, and Howitt, 79, in turn shared the other half “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction,” the jury added.
Over the past two centuries, and for the first time in history, the world has experienced sustained economic growth, and laureates explained how innovation was the driver of that growth, said John Hassler, chair of the award committee.
To do this, Mokyr, a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, “used historical sources to discover how the causes of sustained growth became the new normal,” the jury stated in a statement.
Aghion and Howitt examined the concept of “creative destruction,” which refers to the process by which “a new, better product enters the market” and “companies selling the old products lose out.”
Kerstin Enflo, professor of economic history and member of the Nobel committee, stressed that the work of the laureates “reminds us that we should not take progress for granted.”
“On the contrary, society must remain attentive to the factors that generate and sustain economic growth. These factors are scientific innovation, creative destruction and a society open to change,” he stressed.
Aghion expressed himself in that sense after receiving the award.
“I think European countries must realize that we cannot allow the United States and China to become technological leaders and lose to them,” he said, when contacted by the committee.
A Europe left behind
“Openness is an engine of growth, everything that hinders openness is an obstacle to growth,” Aghion insisted, at a time when the United States has decided to raise its customs tariffs.
“After a period in which Europe regained ground against the United States in terms of GDP per capita between the Second World War and the mid-1980s,” the gap has widened again, warned the professor at the London School of Economics.
The reason for this delay, he explained, is that “we were not able to implement important technological innovations.”
“We are stuck in medium technological advances (…) because we do not have the appropriate policies and institutions to innovate in the field of high technologies,” warned the Frenchman, who helped President Emmanuel Macron prepare his economic program before criticizing his “turn to the right.”
End of Nobel season
The Economics award is the only award that is not among the five originals created by the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.
It is the Swedish central bank that created this prize in 1968, which led its detractors to call it a “false Nobel.”
But, like the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and Physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences chooses the winner and follows the same selection process.
