Joel Mokyr, a Tel Aviv University scientist and dual citizen of Israel and the United States, on Monday won the 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, along with Philippe Aghion of the College de France and the INSEAD business school, and Peter Howitt, a professor emeritus of economics at Brown University.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded half the $1.1 million prize to Mokyr and the other half to be split between Aghion and Howitt for showing how “society must keep an eye on the factors that generate and sustain economic growth,” an award committee member wrote.
Mokyr was at his vacation home in Western Michigan when he got the news of his prize, The New York Times reported, and he was preoccupied by the news of Israeli hostages being released, he told the newspaper. He had forgotten the Nobel Prize announcement until he noticed congratulatory emails and a missed call from Sweden, Mokyr said.
The three economists researched the relationship between technological progress and sustained economic growth, which has improved living conditions. Their work would help ensure that growth was maintained and could be steered in the direction to support humankind, the prize committee wrote.
“Sustained economic growth, driven by a continuous stream of technological innovations and improvements, has replaced stagnation,” John Hassler, the chair of the prize committee, said in a ceremony announcing the award on Monday, the Times reported.
Mokyr, who teaches at Tel Aviv University, received half the prize for his work in explaining how sustained economic growth became the norm, the Times reported.
Mokyr’s work has emphasized the importance of society being open to new ideas and allowing change, including in his book, A Culture of Growth: Origins of the Modern Economy.
Mokyr said he was optimistic about the prospects for more economic growth because of the “human capability of manipulating and harnessing the forces of nature to its own needs.”
Aghion and Howitt shared the other half of the award for what the committee described as “the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.” They built a mathematical growth model, with creative destruction as a core element.
