The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded on Monday to American-Israeli Joel Mokyr, Frenchman Philippe Aghion, and Canadian Peter Howitt for their work on the impact of new technologies on economic growth.

Half of the prize is awarded to Joel Mokyr, 79, "for identifying the preconditions for sustainable growth through technological progress" and the other half jointly to Philippe Aghion, 69, and Peter Howitt, 79, "for their theory of sustainable growth through creative destruction."

Over the past two centuries, for the first time in history, the world has experienced sustained economic growth, and this year's winners explained how innovation stimulated growth and provided the impetus for it to continue, explained John Hassler, chairman of the Economic Sciences Prize committee.

Joel Mokyr, who teaches at Northwestern University in the United States, "used historical sources as a means to uncover the causes of sustained growth, which has become the new normal," the jury noted in a statement.

Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt have jointly examined the concept of "creative destruction," which refers to how companies selling established products suffer when a new, better product enters the market.

"This process is creative because it relies on innovation, but it is also destructive because older products become obsolete and lose their commercial value," the jury wrote.

"The laureates' work reminds us that we should not take progress for granted. On the contrary, society must remain attentive to the factors that generate and sustain economic growth. These factors are scientific innovation, creative destruction, and a society open to change," said Kerstin Enflo, professor of economic history and member of the Nobel committee, in presenting the prize.

"Openness is an engine of growth; anything that hinders openness is an obstacle to growth," insisted one of the winners, Philippe Aghion, when the prize was announced, at a time when the United States was raising its customs duties.

He warned Europe that the European continent should not allow the United States and China "to become the technological leaders."

Prize created in 1969

The three men succeed a trio of US-based researchers who were awarded the prize last year for their research on wealth disparities between countries: Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu and British-Americans Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson.

The only prize not included in Alfred Nobel's will was the economics prize, which was added to the five traditional awards in 1969, earning it the nickname "fake Nobel" from its detractors.

Created by the Swedish Central Bank "in memory" of the inventor, it traditionally closes the awards season.

On Friday, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

Earlier, the literature prize had awarded the Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai, 71, "for his fascinating and visionary work which, in the midst of apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art."

In chemistry, a trio of chemists, the Japanese Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, born in the United Kingdom, and the American-Jordanian Omar M. Yaghi, won the award for developing new molecular structures capable of trapping gases.

The physics prize was awarded to a British-French-American trio - John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John M. Martinis - for their discovery of the "tunnel effect" in quantum mechanics, a counterintuitive science that describes the world on an infinitely small scale.

The first award to be given, medicine, went to a Japanese-American trio - Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi - for their work on how the body controls the immune system.

The Nobel Prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal, and a check for 11 million Swedish kronor (nearly one million euros), of which Joel Mokyr receives half and Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt share the other. It is awarded on December 10.