A London School of Economics professor whose research into how ¡°creative destruction¡± drives economic growth has won a Nobel Prize alongside two US-based scholars.

Phillipe Aghion, a French academic who is also affiliated with Coll¨¨ge de France and INSEAD, both in Paris, shared the prize with Canadian scholar Peter Howitt, from Brown University, for the ¡°theory of sustained growth through creative destruction¡±, it was??on 13 October.

Economic historian Joel Mokyr, born in the Netherlands and now based at Northwestern University, took a third share of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for his work helping to explain innovation-driven economic growth. He used historical sources to show how sustained growth only occurs if society has scientific explanations for innovations, underpinning the importance of remaining open to new ideas and allowing change.

Aghion and Howitt¡¯s contribution relates principally to an article from 1992 in which they constructed a mathematical model for ¡°creative destruction¡±?¨C namely, when a new and better product enters the market and companies selling the older products lose out.

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¡°The laureates¡¯ work shows that economic growth cannot be taken for granted. We must uphold the mechanisms that underlie creative destruction, so that we do not fall back into stagnation,¡± said John Hassler, chair of the committee for the prize in economic sciences, which was introduced in 1972 to complement the older Nobel prizes?in sciences and peace, backed by Sweden¡¯s central bank.

¡°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,¡± added the prize¡¯s judges.

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Aghion¡¯s win in economics is the first win for an academic employed by a UK university at the time of their win since the LSE¡¯s Christopher Pissarides took the prize in 2010.

Prior to Pissarides, the last UK-based economics laureate was the Indian-born economist Amartya Sen in 1998, although all three of last year¡¯s US-based economics laureates?Daron Acemoglu,?Simon Johnson?and James Robinson studied in the UK at some point.

Prior to this year, Jean Tirole, the 2014 economics laureate, was the last winner to be affiliated with a non-US university (Toulouse School of Economics) when winning the discipline¡¯s top prize, though he also had dual affiliation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com