Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

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For Angus Deaton – awarded the Prize in Economic Sciences 2015 – fly fishing has helped him think in new and creative ways

Over the last two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has seen sustained economic growth. This has lifted vast numbers of people out of poverty and laid the foundation of our prosperity. This year’s laureates in economic sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress.

The laureates have taught us that sustained growth cannot be taken for granted. Economic stagnation, not growth, has been the norm for most of human history. Their work shows that we must be aware of, and counteract, threats to continued growth.

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Popular information: From stagnation to sustained growth
Scientific background to the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025 to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth” with one half to Joel Mokyr “for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress” and the other half jointly to Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt “for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction.”

Mokyr used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal. Aghion and Howitt also studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth. In an article from 1992, they constructed a mathematical model for what is called creative destruction: when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out.

Economic sciences prize 2023

Claudia Goldin demonstrated how and why gender differences in earnings and employment rates have changed over time in the United States.

Claudia Goldin after receiving her prize

Economic sciences prize 2017

Richard Thaler has paid special attention to three psychological factors: the tendency to not behave completely rationally, notions of fairness and reasonableness, and lack of self-control.

Economic sciences prize 1994

John Nash was awarded the economic sciences prize for the Nash equilibrium theory. He introduced the distinction between cooperative games and non-cooperative games.

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Laureate in economic sciences Bengt Holmström likes the Chinese board game GO, which begins with simple rules but gets difficult as one progresses.

Photo: Nobel Prize Museum

Daniel Kahneman

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2002 for having integrated insights from psychological research into economic science, especially concerning human judgment and decision-making under uncertainty.

Angus Deaton employed theory, data collection and statistics together to see how consumption, poverty, and welfare are related. His conclusion? We need to understand individual consumption choices before we can design economic policy that promotes welfare and reduces poverty.

Angus Deaton visiting the Vasa Museum during the Nobel week in Stockholm.

Watch this interview with Dr. John Nash, who received the Prize in Economic Sciences in 1994. He talks about the impact the prize has had on his life, his talent for mathematics as a child and about the movie about his life, ‘A Beautiful Mind’.

Read how ‘innumerable contracts’ hold modern economies together. The recipients of the 2016 Prize in Economic Sciences created theoretical tools for understanding real-life contracts and institutions, as well as potential pitfalls in contract design.