Congratulations to Philippe Aghion, associate of CEP and the Programme on Innovation and Diffusion (POID), on being awarded the Erasmus Medal of the Academia Europaea.

The award is given to a European scholar who has maintained, over a sustained period of time, an outstanding level of international scholarship as recognised by peers. It is perhaps the highest recognition for purely scholarly achievements that the Academy can bestow.

Professor Aghion, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Collège de France, is described by the medal awarding committee as "a truly global giant in his academic field".

The citation continues: "His major ground-breaking research relates to the economics of growth and contract theory, where he developed with Peter Howitt, Rachel Griffith and others, the Schumpeterian Growth paradigm by reviving Schumpeter with sound theoretical considerations and by providing testable implications."

The award comes after the publication of his latest book The Power of Creative Destruction (Harvard University Press, 2021; together with Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel) where he discusses strategies to tame capitalism to ensure future innovations and wellbeing. 

Professor Aghion's CEP discussion papers include: Carbon taxes, path dependency and directed technical change: evidence from the auto industry; The innovation premium to soft skills in low-skilled occupations; The heterogeneous impact of market size on innovation: evidence from French firm-level exports and The impact of regulation on innovation.

Professor Aghion will receive the medal and deliver a lecture at the Academy's annual conference on 26-27 October 2022.

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