美以法加三位學者榮獲2025年諾貝爾經濟學獎

Welcome to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences this press conference where we will present this year's Sveriges Riksbank Prize Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel We will keep to our tradition and start in Swedish and then continue the presentation in English And you are of course welcome to ask questions later on in either language My name is Hans Ellergren and I am the Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences On my one side is Professor John Hassler Chairman of the Committee for Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel and on my other side is Professor Kerstin Enflo Chairman of the Committee for Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences My name is Hans Ellergren I am the Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and to my right is Professor John Hassler Chairman of the Committee for Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel and to my left is Professor Kerstin Enflo Member of the Committee and an expert in this field Årets pris handlar om att skapa och förstöra Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided today to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences to Alfred Nobel in memory of 2025 to Joël Maucure, Northwestern University USA Philippe Agion, Collège de France Initiatives, France and London School of Economics, Great Britain and Peter Howitt, Brown University USA for explaining innovative economic growth One half of the prize goes to Joël Maucure for identifying the prerequisites for sustainable growth in technological development and the other half goes to Philippe Agion and Peter Howitt for theories of sustainable growth through creative destruction The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has today decided to award the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel for 2025 to Joël Maucure, Northwestern University USA Philippe Agion, Collège de France Initiatives, France and London School of Economics, UK and Peter Howitt, Brown University USA for having explained innovation-driven economic growth With one half the prize goes to Joël Maucure for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress and the other half jointly to Philippe Agion and Peter Howitt for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction Professor Jon Hassler will now give us a short summary Please Thank you, Hans During almost all of humankind's history living standards did not change noticeably from generation to generation Economic growth was on average zero and stagnation was the normal Sporadic episodes of growth sometimes driven by new discoveries always eventually petered out Over the last 200 years or so things have been very different Sustained economic growth driven by a continuous stream of technological innovations and improvements has replaced stagnation New medicines, safer cars, better food more efficient ways of heating and lighting our homes The internet and increased opportunities for communication with other people over long distances are just a few dimensions of economic growth Over time, this process has fundamentally changed our societies Over the span of one or two centuries almost everything has changed Change, not stagnation, has become the new normal How could sustained economic growth based on a steady stream of technological innovations replace stagnation? What conflicts arise in a society when new products and production methods replace the old ones? How should policy be devised so that societies do not fall back into stagnation? Answers to these questions are what this year's prize is about Joel McKee used historical observations to identify the factors necessary for sustained growth based on technological innovations Philippe Aguillon and Peter Howitt have produced a mathematical model of creative destruction an endless process in which new and better products replace the old With the understanding of the mechanisms of creative destruction provided by the laureates and the follow-up research We have a better chance to make sure growth can continue and be guided in the direction that benefits humankind Thank you, Jan Professor Enflo will now give us a more in-depth presentation of this year's prize Please Thank you During the last 200 years economic growth has been surprisingly stable We can see it here with graphs covering the United Kingdom and the United States where we have GDP per capita on the y-axis here measured in a relative scale That means that the slope of the trend lines here are the constant growth rates The message here is clear Over this period GDP per capita has more than doubled with each generation and the total increase here has been more than 20-fold So what can then account for all of these massive growth rates? The answer is technological change And as you can see here with the example of telephones technological change has progressed steadily, too The process has been creative in the sense that it builds on new ideas and innovations but it's also been destructive because each new phone here has replaced the previous version and made that technology obsolete This year's prize is exactly about that It's about explaining innovation-driven sustained economic growth In particular how did such growth become sustained in the first place? And secondly how can growth continue despite the conflicting interest growth creates when new technology replaces the old? The first part of the prize goes to Joel McHugh an economic historian who noted that technological change alone cannot explain economic growth because technological change predates growth by millennia And we can see it here in this graph that goes back to medieval times for Sweden and England Over these 400 years we see that GDP per capita barely changed despite the fact that some really important innovations took place in this period such as the heavy plow or the printing press With this, McHugh identified the important prerequisites for growth and I'm going to go through them with you right now The first one is useful knowledge It has two components prescriptive knowledge which means a set of instructions or recipes that can guide somebody how to carry out a certain technology like a user manual, if you will For most of human history what was known to society about technological change rested mostly on this type of knowledge People knew how to operate a certain technology but they didn't know why it worked And that brings us to the second component here Propositional knowledge Knowledge about rules and regularities in the physical world that can explain to us why the technologies work We can think about this as science in the broad sense McHugh tells us that these two components need to come together and interact in order to generate the sustained stream of innovations needed to generate sustained growth Here we can see the feedback loops here But even the best ideas would still be left on the drawing table if it wasn't for the skilled mechanics and engineers that could take the drawings from the drawing tables scale up the models and put science into economic use For this, mechanical competence is a key prerequisite And finally, societies need to be open to change McHugh exemplifies with several instances during history where groups fearing to lose out from technological change tried to block it The most famous example here is probably the Luddite movement where skilled textile workers were destroying machinery to protest technological change But if society has arenas where groups can meet and negotiate their claims and come up with mutually beneficial compromises change is rather embraced All these factors came together for the first time with the Enlightenment that paved the way for sustained growth first in Britain and then moving on to other countries And that brings us to the second part of the prize Philippe Aguillon and Peter Howitt created a mathematical model of growth where creative destruction features as a core element This model became a paradigm shift in how we think about economic growth And from it, we can derive the average growth rate as a result of a multitude of decisions made by individuals facing conflicting interests As such, the model can explain how growth can be such a disruptive process at the firm level and still result in those stable aggregate growth rates that we saw in the beginning of the presentation Here, we see how they derive the economy's average growth rate from the model But I'm not going to go through all the mathematical details with you right now Instead, let's focus on the core components of the model Here, firms invest resources into R&D research and development in order to innovate and improve on existing products If they are successful they can become market leaders and earn a profit But it also means that they out-compete another actor in the business and that person has to leave the business This is called the business-stealing effect in their model But it's of course not stealing in any formal sense of the word With this, the model identifies two forces that pull in opposite directions with respect to policy On the one hand, policy should support the innovation process These guys climbing up here because they can build on each other's ideas and ideas have a value to society But at the same time, policy must also consider the business-stealing effect especially in the cases where the technology delivered to the market only means an incremental improvement Because the model takes the entire economy into account it can also speak directly to policy such as, for example how to set R&D subsidies in practice With extension, the model also can talk about things like how to optimize safety nets for those workers that have seen their jobs lost due to creative destruction These are of course all pressing policy questions in today's world and they have long-term consequences So, to sum up During the last 200 years the world has seen more economic growth than ever before in human history This growth has increased our living standards in so many different ways But still, 200 years is still just a short period compared to the long-run history of stagnation that we saw before The laureate's work reminds us that we should not take progress for granted Instead, society must keep an eye on the factors that generate and sustain economic growth These are science-based innovation creative destruction and a society open for change Thank you Thank you, Kerstin I hope we have Professor Aguillon on the phone Is that right? Yes, absolutely Can you hear me? We can hear you Good morning And congratulations again to the prize Yeah, that's quite a surprise And I'm still speechless It came really as a huge surprise I did not expect it at all So, I'm... I can't find the words to express what I feel I understand that it could be difficult Here, you are live at the press conference There are many interested journalists from the Swedish and the international press Are you ready to take some questions? Yes, absolutely Someone who would like to start? Yes, please Hi, my name is Jens B. Nordström I'm from TV4 in Sweden Congratulations on the prize Classical question Thank you so much How are you planning to spend the prize money? Well, that's a good question You know, I have a research lab at Collège de France and INSEAD in Paris And so, usually, I... Well, we have research projects Well, I invest a lot in my... in these research projects with younger researchers that work with me And, well, we are pushing a number of projects on, you know, growth and artificial intelligence green growth, R&D policy And, well, that's what I want to... That's what I will do, probably I have to push this wonderful enterprise which is this lab Can you... Is that a... Yes Hello Professor, this is Bogun Radzejewski from the Polish television Congratulations I have a question Thank you about certain consequences of your work because your mathematical model helps us understand how sustained growth actually works I wonder... Because since our economy is based on the sustained growth model Is there any... Do you see any risk of that sustained growth that we've seen in global economy in the past 200 years Is there risk that it collapses and what could be possible reasons for that in the future Thank you very much I mean, threats... Thank you so much I mean, threats on economic growth Of course you have, you know, current trends towards deglobalization, you know, tariff barriers Those things are obstacles to growth because you need a big market to grow more I mean, a bigger market means more rent for innovators means more possibilities to exchange ideas means that you can transfer technologies means more competition So openness is a driver of growth Anything that gets in the way of openness is an obstacle to growth So I see there kind of dark clouds currently, you know, accumulating pushing for, you know, barriers to trade and openness, okay So that's one thing The other, of course, concern is that, you know, green growth We want to reconcile growth with the environment So how can we make sure that we will innovate greener Firms do not spontaneously innovate green They tend to innovate in what they used to do If they used to innovate in dirty technologies they will continue spontaneously to innovate in dirty technologies How can you redirect technical progress towards green Carbon price, carbon tax Green industrial policy How should we design these policies So that's a fantastic challenge in front of us And AI has fantastic growth potential But we know that with inappropriate competition policy the same as with IT can happen Some superstar firms may end up dominating everything and inhibiting, you know potential entry of new innovators So how can we make sure that today's innovators will not stifle future entry and future innovation But those are, you know very, you know exciting questions that keep us busy Yes, yes, please, here Hello and congratulations I'm from the Swedish news agency TT Maybe this is a bit of repetition But how do you see the tariffs from the US How large a threat is that to sustained growth Would you say It's true that, you know I'm not welcoming the protectionist wave in the US, okay And that's not good for, you know World growth and innovation But on the other hand Let's look at the bright side I think European countries have to realize that We should no longer let US and China become technological leaders and lose to them I mean, what happened is that after a period of catching up of Europe towards the US in per capita GDP terms between World War II and the mid-80s Since the mid-80s the average per capita GDP of the Eurozone has declined relative to US And the big reason is that we failed to implement a breakthrough high-tech innovations We remain circumscribed to mid-tech incremental And that's very much in relation with the Draghi report We are missing proper policies and institutions to innovate breakthrough high-tech A true single market Don't have a true single market gold plating practices get in the way of achieving the single market We don't have proper financial ecosystem of innovation I know Sweden is doing very well You have institutional investors But other European countries should emulate Sweden in setting up, you know proper financial ecosystem integrated capital market institutional investors venture capital We miss all those things that they have in the US And also on research we have the ERC the European Research Council But we should also have ERC for labs to finance laboratories on long-term basis And also we don't have the equivalent of the DARPA of the Defense Advanced Project Agency which is a pro-competition way of doing industrial policy That we don't have in Europe In the US and in China they found ways to reconcile competition and industrial policy In Europe in the name of competition policy we became very anti any form of industrial policy I think we need to evolve on that and find ways to reconcile industrial policy in areas like defense, climate, AI, biotech Where we are very good We have very good research there reconcile the smart industrial policy with competition policy We have fantastic basic research in Europe You know that most breakthrough patents cite a lot European research But the European research does not translate into breakthrough innovation in Europe And that's what we have to deal with But we have fantastic potential Because in Europe we have democracy and freedom It's in Europe first Green and the concern for environment is in Europe first And social model the concern for social for inclusive growth That's in Europe first So we have fantastic soft power But we need to harness all the potential we have in Europe Thank you Is there some more questions here? Here, please Congratulations, Professor Agion Thank you so much My name is Colin I'm from the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter Now that the sum of human knowledge is available to machines and can be synthesized with AI How do you expect the process of creative destruction to change? So it's true that AI may accelerate creative destruction But I think that, you know I think AI has a big growth potential Because AI automates tasks both in the production of goods and services in the production of ideas So there is a huge, I think, growth Ideas will become easier to find more than ever thanks to AI So AI has a big growth potential The problem is to harness this potential And that's why competition policy is important If we don't have appropriate competition policy We will inhibit the growth potential of AI When it comes to employment Of course, there is a big fear that AI will destroy a lot of jobs But that's why it's important to have good education system Because at school, we learn to learn And good flex security system on the labor market Like you do have in Sweden Like they have in Denmark We should emulate Sweden and Denmark on that front And I think that will But, you know, I believe also that it's true that You know, when you have a revolution like AI There is the fear of unemployment But it's true that Machines substitute for humans But on the other hand It allows you to become much more productive And therefore it increases the world market demand for your products And that allows you to increase employment If you look at all big technological revolution Starting with the steam engine You had the Luddites movement there Because people were fearing in England unemployment due to the steam engine Then you had the electricity revolution Where Keynes predicted mass unemployment And then you had the IT Where we were scared that robots would create mass unemployment It never happened Because you have this productivity effect When you introduce IT or AI You become more productive more competitive And therefore the world market demand for your products goes up This productivity effect turns out to be quite important But of course we need good institutions on education labor market policy to harness this productivity potential And to make sure we minimize the negative effect of the new industrial revolution like we did with previous one So again I think the prosperity and happiness is the combined result of institutions and of technology and institutions and policies And if we don't adapt institutions and policies to the technology Then of course we get unhappy outcomes But if we know how to adapt them Then we can get the best from the technological revolutions Thank you Professor Agion We have time for one last short question And a short answer Yes please My name is Johan Persson I'm from the Swedish EFN Congratulations What would the most important policy today for governments to implant to help innovation and creative destruction Well I think it will not only be one policy It's a combination You need I mean you need to invest seriously in research research the green industrial policy the research policy And at the same time you need to create this single market the competition That's a smart combination between more competition and market integration on the one hand And voluntary policy on research And industrial policy which is very pro innovation This combination I think lies at the heart of making Europe and our countries more innovative and faster growing I think Thank you Professor Agion And once again our warmest congratulations Hope you accept that Thank you so much We look forward to seeing you here in Stockholm in December for the Nobel Prize ceremony Thank you I look forward to it very much Bye bye Thank you Let's move on to if you have some questions about the prize to the prize committee or about the work I think we might have time to one or two final questions Yes please I have a question because I'm wondering this year's prize clearly puts in focus the importance of new technologies and the importance of innovation and the importance of financing that kind of research Is that a commentary from the Nobel committee on the ongoing discussion on financing science particularly in the United States Kerstin do you want to address that No we don't make any commentaries about any current events in that sense Our work is all about the scientific contribution of these laureates So it is actually only about celebrating the work that they have done and honoring that with the prize Yes Yes one last question there please I'm wondering these three Professor Agione and Howitt they work together Mokyr is perhaps the odd one out How was it difficult to sort of split the prize between these three and was it a natural fit for the committee to choose these three together John Well it's true that their approaches are very different Joel Mokyr is an economic historian and has really dig deep into the historical evidence that he uses while Peter Howitt and Philippe Agione have used mathematical models So it's very different On the other hand I think it's very clear when you think about it that the questions that they try to address what are the mechanism behind sustained long-run growth and then you understand that they complement each other very much So I think it shows that different areas of science often are very complementary By that I think we close this press conference We hope to see all of you when we have the laureates here in December So thank you