Philippe Aghion

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Template:Infobox economist Philippe Mario Aghion Template:Post-nominals (Template:IPA; born 17 August 1956) is a French economist who is a professor at the Collège de France and INSEAD, and visiting professor at the London School of Economics. Prior to that, he was a professor at University College London (1996Template:Endash2002), an Official Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (1992Template:Endash1996), and an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1987Template:Endash1989). From 2002 to 2015, he was the Robert C. Waggoner Professor of Economics at Harvard University.

In 2025, he shared half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Peter Howitt "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction."

Early life and education

Philippe Aghion was born in Paris in 1956, he is the son of Gaby Aghion, a French fashion designer and founder of the French fashion house Chloé. Gaby is said to have coined the phrase prêt-à-porter. His father, Raymond Aghion, had an art gallery in Boulevard Saint-Germain. Both his parents are from Jewish families from Alexandria, Egypt. They later moved to Paris, in the Quartier latin before buying a house in Neuilly-sur-Seine. In an interview, Aghion recalled that he grew up surrounded by artists, including Karl Lagerfeld.

Aghion graduated from the mathematics section of the École normale supérieure de Cachan (now ENS Paris-Saclay, University of Paris-Saclay), and obtained a diplôme d'études approfondies and a doctorat de troisième cycle (third cycle doctorate) in mathematical economics from the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1987.

Career

Aghion began his academic career in 1987 when he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an Assistant Professor. In 1989 he returned to France and became a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). In 1990, he was appointed Deputy Chief Economist of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), before moving to the Nuffield College, Oxford and then University College London in 1996. In 2002, he returned to Harvard where he became the Robert C. Waggoner Professor in Economics, a chair he held until 2015 when he was named Centennial Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE).

Other activities

Aghion was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and he is a member of the Executive and Supervisory Committee (ESC) of CERGE-EI. He was president of the European Economic Association in 2017. He has been an editor of the Annual Review of Economics since 2018.

Ahead of the 2012 French presidential election, Aghion co-signed an appeal of several economists in support of candidate François Hollande.

In 2016, Aghion was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to an expert group advising the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, which was co-chaired by presidents François Hollande of France and Jacob Zuma of South Africa. In 2021, he was appointed to the World Bank–International Monetary Fund High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG) on Sustainable and Inclusive Recovery and Growth, co-chaired by Mari Pangestu, Ceyla Pazarbasioglu, and Nicholas Stern.

Additional advisory activities include:

• Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education – Economics Institute (CERGE-EI), Member of the Board of Trustees
• Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI), Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), Member of the Advisory Board

Aghion Report (2010)

Philippe Aghion led a working group of ten international experts whose work initially focused on an international comparison of university autonomy, and then on the implementation of campuses of academic excellence (fr). A two-part report was submitted in January 2010 to the Minister of Higher Education Valérie Pécresse.

This report recommended establishing "balanced governance" in universities. Drawing on the examples of Harvard, MIT, Oxford, or Cambridge, it acknowledged that there is no single governance model.

It proposed the creation of two governing bodies at the head of universities. The first, the board of directors, would be composed mostly of external members, who would appoint a president with extensive powers. The second would be embodied in an "academic senate", a genuine forum for scientific and pedagogical proposals.

Political views

During the 2012 French presidential election, he signed the appeal of economists supporting candidate François Hollande because of "the relevance of the proposed options, in particular with regard to the recovery of growth and employment". In 2017, he expressed his support for Emmanuel Macron.

Honours and awards

Honours

• Knight of the Legion of Honour (2012)
• Officer of the Ordre national du Mérite (2018)

Awards

In 2019, Aghion and Peter Howitt received the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics. He and Howitt were also awarded half of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2025 "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction", the other half going to Joel Mokyr.

Books

• Aghion, Philippe; Antonin, Celine; Bunel, Simon (2021): The Power of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations. Harvard University Press. Template:ISBN.
• Aghion, Philippe; Howitt, Peter (2009); The Economics of Growth. MIT Press. Template:ISBN
• Aghion, Philippe; Griffith, Rachel (2006). Competition and Growth. MIT Press. Template:ISBN
• Aghion, Philippe; Durlauf, Steven N. (2005). Handbook of economic growth. 1A. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Template:ISBN.
• Aghion, Philippe; Durlauf, Steven N. (2005). Handbook of economic growth. 1B. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Template:ISBN.
• Aghion, Philippe; Howitt, Peter (1998). Endogenous growth theory. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Template:ISBN.

See also

• List of Jewish Nobel laureates

External links

• Template:Nobelprize