Nobel Economics Prize Goes to 3 Researchers for Explaining Innovation-Driven Economic Growth

janrinok writes:

Nobel economics prize goes to 3 researchers for explaining innovation-driven economic growth

Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt won the Nobel memorial prize in economics Monday 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 College 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 an AP 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 he would win the Nobel, he said. "I told them that I was more likely to be elected Pope than to win the Nobel Prize in economics-and I am Jewish, by the way."

Mokyr will turn 80 next summer but said he has no plans to retire. "This is the type of job that I dreamed about my entire life," he said.

Like fellow laureate Mokyr, Aghion also expressed surprise at the honor. "I can't find the words to express what I feel," he said by phone to the press conference in Stockholm. He said he would invest his prize money in his research laboratory.

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."

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