Canadian economist Peter Howitt is among the group of three researchers who won this year’s Nobel memorial prize in economics.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday, that Howitt, along with Dutch-born Joel Mokyr and French Philippe Aghion, received the prize for “having explained innovation-driven economic growth.”

Howitt and Aghion relied on mathematics to explain how creative destruction works, a key concept in economics that refers to the process in which beneficial new innovations replace — and thus destroy — older technologies and businesses.

Both economists studied the mechanisms behind sustained growth, including in a 1992 article in which they constructed a mathematical model for creative destruction.

Howitt, 79, received his bachelor’s degree in economics from

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