Philippe Aghion, Professor at the Collège de France and LSE, offers a cutting-edge analysis of what drives economic growth and a blueprint for prosperity under capitalism.

With the launch of his book, of which he is a co-author, The Power of Creative Destruction, Philippe Aghion draws on cutting-edge theory and evidence to examine the roots of growth and inequality, competition and globalisation, the determinants of health and happiness, technological revolutions, secular stagnation, middle-income traps, climate change, and how to recover from economic shocks. He shows that we owe our modern standard of living to innovations enabled by free-market capitalism. We hear more and more calls for radical change, even the overthrow of capitalism. Aghion suggests the answer is to create a better capitalism by understanding and harnessing the power of creative destruction—innovation that disrupts, but that over the past two hundred years has also lifted societies to previously unimagined prosperity. The Power of Creative Destruction shows that a fair and prosperous future is ultimately ours to make.

Meet our speaker and chair

Philippe Aghion is Professor at the Collège de France and the London School of Economics and Political Science and was previously Professor of Economics at Harvard. His new book The Power of Creative Destruction, is co-authored with Céline Antonin and Simon Bunel. 

Steve Pischke has been in the Economics Department at LSE since 2000, is an associate in the CEP, and currently Head of the Department. His key expertise is in Labour Economics, Economics of Education, and Applied Econometrics.

More about this event

The Department of Economics (@LSEEcon) at LSE, is one of the leading economics departments in the world. We are a large department, ensuring all mainstream areas of economics are strongly represented in research and teaching.

This event forms part of LSE’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative, a series of debates about the direction the world could and should be taking after the crisis.

You can order the book, The Power of Creative Destruction - Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations, (UK delivery only) from our official LSE Events independent book shop, Pages of Hackney.

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Podcast & Video

A podcast of this event is available to download from The Power of Creative Destruction - Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations.

A video of this event is available to watch at The Power of Creative Destruction - Economic Upheaval and the Wealth of Nations. 

Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.