Stockholm, Oct 14: Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt won the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics for their research into the impact of innovation on economic growth and how new technologies replace older ones, a key economic concept known as “creative destruction.” The winners represent contrasting but complementary approaches to economics.Mokyr is an economic historian who delved into long-term trends using historical sources, while Howitt and Aghion relied on mathematics to explain how creative destruction works.
Dutch-born Mokyr, 79, is from Northwestern University; Aghion, 69, from the Collège de France and the London School of Economics; and Canadian-born Howitt, 79, from Brown University.
Mokyr was still trying to get his morning coffee when he was reached on the phone by a reporter, and said he was shocked to win the prize. “People always say this, but in this case I am being truthful – I had no clue that anything like this was going to happen,” he said.
His students had asked him about the possibility that he would win the Nobel, he said. “I told them that I was more likely to be elected Pope than to win the Noel Prize in economics – and I am Jewish by the way.” Aghion said he was shocked by the honour. “I can’t find the words to express what I feel,” he said by phone to the press conference in Stockholm.
Asked about current trade wars and protectionism in the world, Aghion said that: “I am not welcoming the protectionist way in the US. That is not good for … world growth and innovation.”
The winners were credited with better explaining and quantifying “creative destruction,” a key concept in economics that refers to the process in which beneficial new innovations replace – and thus destroy – older technologies and businesses. The concept is usually associated with economist Joseph Schumpeter, who outlined it in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
The Nobel committee said Mokyr “demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why.” Aghion and Howitt studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth, including in a 1992 article in which they constructed a mathematical model for creative destruction.