Philippe Aghion embodies a rare intellectual continuity between theory and public action, a convinced post-Schumpeterian, he has built a rigorous body of work around a simple idea: sustainable growth is born from innovation, but innovation only thrives in a balanced institutional framework, where competition stimulates research without stifling risk-taking.
Born in 1956 in Paris into a family of intellectuals and artists, his father Raymond, a gallery owner committed to the left, and his mother Gaby, founder of the Chloé house, Philippe Aghion combined mathematics and economics very early on. A former student of the ENS de Cachan, then a doctor in economics at Harvard, he became one of the architects of the theory of endogenous growth alongside Peter Howitt, with whom he formalized in 1992 “creative destruction” as the engine of economic progress.
From Harvard to the Collège de France, where he has held the “Economics of Institutions, Innovation and Growth” chair since 2015, Philippe Aghion has continually sought to understand how public power can reconcile economic dynamism and social cohesion. His work has inspired several government reports, from the Attali Commission to the Commission for the Liberation of French Growth, and influenced generations of economists and decision-makers.
A thought serving the French strategy in artificial intelligence
In 2023, the government entrusted him, alongside Anne Bouverot, with the co-chairmanship of the Generative Artificial Intelligence Committee. For six months, Philippe Aghion transposes the principles of his growth theory to the technological field where innovation must be encouraged by competition, supported by public investment and protected by appropriate regulation.
The report submitted in March 2024 defends a sovereign and structured AI strategy with a “France & AI” fund of 10 billion euros, massive investments in research, training and computing capacities, and an industrial policy based on competitiveness rather than dependence. The text argues for a Schumpeterian approach to artificial intelligence: create, destroy, start again.
This document, hailed by academic and industrial stakeholders, nevertheless remains without direct political follow-up. For Philippe Aghion, the mistake would be to reduce AI to a diplomatic or event-related subject and to recall that it is, above all, a lever for growth and sovereignty.
A reformist economist facing the Zucman tax
Faithful to his conception of an economy of innovation, Philippe Aghion opposed the “Zucman tax”, believing that it risked slowing down French competitiveness. Without rejecting the principle of an increased contribution from large fortunes, he criticizes a tax which would include the professional assets of entrepreneurs: “Taxing unrealized wealth would amount to forcing founders to sell their shares to pay the tax. »
For him, taxation must distinguish between productive capital and income capital. A uniform 2% tax on wealth would be, in his words, “a tax prison” if it were not adopted at European level. He instead calls for a modulated ISF, a temporary exemption for young companies and progressive taxation of non-productive holding companies.
“I want a redistributive tax, but not a tax that slows down creation. » Behind this sentence, the conviction that inclusive growth is based on investment in knowledge and training, not on the penalization of risk.
A Nobel for tomorrow’s growth
On October 14, 2025, Philippe Aghion received the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, alongside Joel Mokyr and Peter Howitt. This distinction recognizes nearly forty years of work on the links between innovation, competition and growth.
