Professor Aghion, who is currently based at the London School of Economics, the College de France and INSEAD, was Professor of Economics at UCL from 1996-2002. He shares the prestigious award with Joel Mokyr (Northwestern University) and Peter Howitt (Brown University) "for having explained innovation-driven economic growth". He is UCL’s 33rd Nobel laureate.
Throughout their careers Aghion and Howitt studied the mechanisms behind sustained economic growth and constructed a mathematical model for the concept of ’creative destruction’, also known as the Schumpeterian Growth paradigm. This is when companies selling older products lose out when a new and better products enter the market.
Aghion and Howitt’s work on the dynamics of capitalism and innovation-led growth profoundly shaped academic thought and, subsequently, economic global policy.
Professor Aghion’s academic journey includes a period of teaching and research at UCL’s Department of Economics. During this time, he collaborated with many UCL colleagues.
In 2001, while at UCL, Professor Aghion received the Yrjo Jahnsson Award of the best European economist under age 45, in 2009 he received the John Von Neumann Award, and in March 2020 he shared the BBVA "Frontier of Knowledge Award" with Peter Howitt.
The Nobel Prize in in Economic Sciences was established in the 1960s and is awarded by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is also known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
There have been 33 Nobel Prize laureates amongst UCL’s alumni and current and former staff, to date.
The prize committee said: "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 the Economic Sciences, Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt, explain how innovation provides the impetus for further progress."full scientific background on the Nobel Prize website.
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Sophie Hunter
T: +44 (0)7747 565 056E: sophie.hunter@ucl.ac.uk
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