Philippe Aghion is The Kurt Björklund Chaired Professor in Innovation and Growth at INSEAD, a professor at Collège de France and visiting professor at the London School of Economics. In 2025 he was awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences – the Nobel Prize in Economics – with Professors Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr.
Professor Aghion is a fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on the economics of growth. With Peter Howitt, he pioneered the so-called Schumpeterian Growth paradigm which was subsequently used to analyse the design of growth policies and the role of the state in the growth process. Much of this work is summarised in their joint book Endogenous Growth Theory (MIT Press, 1998) and The Economics of Growth (MIT Press, 2009), in his book with Rachel Griffith on Competition and Growth (MIT Press, 2006), and in his survey “What Do We Learn from Schumpeterian Growth Theory” (joint with U. Akcigit and P. Howitt).
In 2001, 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 for “developing an economic growth theory based on the innovation that emerges from the process of creative destruction”. More recently Professor Aghion produced a new book entitled The Power of Creative destruction (Odile Jacob, Harvard University Press) joint with C. Antonin et S. Bunel. While providing a reappraisal of the foundations of economic success and a blueprint for change, The Power of Creative Destruction also shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.
Since 2018, Professor Aghion has been awarded two major individual ERC Advanced Grants, worth a total of €4.41 million. The most recent project, which will begin in December 2025, will explore how innovation and industrial dynamics can drive sustainable and inclusive growth, particularly in the face of global technological and environmental transitions.
Professor Aghion also created The Innovation Lab, with work carried out at INSEAD and the Collège de France. The Lab collects and merges unprecedented microdata (including firm-level accounting, customs and patent data) to produce cutting-edge research on the economics of innovation, productivity, firm dynamics, entrepreneurship and growth. Bringing together young researchers and world-renowned economists, the Lab’s work is published in leading academic journals and examines how innovation and productivity growth interact with competition, trade, inequality, taxation, labour markets, automation and the environment.
