Antonin Bergeaud has been awarded the 2025 Best Young Economist Prize for his research focusing on major economic, technological, and ecological disruptions. 

The Best Young Economist Prize is awarded each year by Le Cercle des économistes, a French economics think tank, in association with Le Monde, a major French newspaper, to a French economist under the age of 41 who combines recognized expertise and active participation in public debate. 

As economies face increasingly profound shocks - climate, technological, geopolitical, demographic - a new generation of economists is delving into understanding them better. In the 26th edition of the Prize, the jury recognised Antonin Bergeaud, a 35-year-old associate professor in the economics department at HEC Paris, as exemplary of this movement. 

A specialist in long-term growth and innovation economics, Bergeaud explores a crucial question in his research: under what conditions can innovation still foster shared, sustainable, and equitable growth? In his academic work and in his essay "The Bright Future of Growth" (co-authored with Gilbert Cette and Rémy Lecat), Antonin Bergeaud investigates the drivers of growth since the 20th century to shed light on current obstacles. 

His approach combines analyzing productivity differences between companies, studying technological diffusion, and the rise of artificial intelligence as a transformative - even disruptive - factor in the labor market. With the promise of a "post-world" order based on digital technologies yet to translate into productivity figures, Bergeaud's research questions a well-known paradox among economists: how can we explain the fact that we are surrounded by innovation - but less and less productive? Moreover, how to combat the slowdown of growth without widening inequalities? These questions will resonate with the theme of the 2025 Aix-en-Provence Economic Meetings, titled "Facing the Shock of Realities", where Antonin Bergeaud will lead a session.

The three economists nominated alongside Antonin Bergeaud also reflect the desire to rethink economics in light of contemporary disruptions. Adrien Bilal, a professor at Stanford, stands out as one of the most innovative researchers on the macroeconomic impacts of climate change. Lauriane Mouysset, a researcher at CNRS, intertwines economics, ecology, and philosophy to build a biodiversity economy that rejects reducing nature to monetary value. Mathieu Parenti, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, develops valuable expertise on environmental and fiscal externalities in open economies. 

As instability becomes the norm and shocks multiply, economic research has never been more crucial to give meaning, direction, and method to collective action. By highlighting these directions of study, the 2025 Best Young Economist Prize outlines a concrete vision for the field of economics, rooted in the world's changes and intent on informing public decisions. 

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_{^{Image Credit: Olivier Vigerie / Les Cercle des économistes}}