At just 36 years old, Antonin Bergeaud has already joined the prestigious ranks of France’s most promising economists. Awarded the 2025 Best Young Economist Prize—an honor jointly bestowed by Le Monde and the Cercle des économistes—he now finds himself in the company of renowned thinkers like Thomas Piketty, Esther Duflo, Julia Cagé, and Gabriel Zucman. But for Bergeaud, the accolade is less a personal milestone than a platform for a much-needed wake-up call: Europe, he warns, is falling dangerously behind in the global technology race, especially in the field of artificial intelligence.
Currently an associate professor at HEC Paris and a soon-to-be member of France’s influential Council of Economic Analysis (CAE), Bergeaud is a specialist in productivity and long-term economic growth. In a conversation with Challenges, he doesn’t mince words: unless Europe dramatically boosts its investments in research, innovation, and AI, it risks not just slower growth—but a structural economic decline from which it may struggle to recover.
The Long Slide in European Productivity
“Between the 1950s and the 1980s, France—and much of Europe—experienced what economists refer to as a ‘Golden Age’ of productivity,” says Bergeaud. “Back then, productivity was growing at a rate of around 5% per year. Today, we’re lucky if we see 0.5%.”
The contrast is staggering. For decades, strong productivity growth powered economic expansion, rising wages, and improved living standards. But now, the engines of that growth have stalled. The demographic dividend that once propelled European economies—an expanding, younger workforce—has diminished. Meanwhile, many of the structural changes that once boosted efficiency, such as mass access to higher education and the early digitalization of industries, have already been absorbed.
“We’ve exhausted a lot of the easy gains,” Bergeaud explains. “That doesn’t mean there’s no room for growth. It just means we have to be more deliberate and strategic about where that growth comes from. And that starts with innovation.”
A Crossroads Moment for Europe
While the United States continues to lead the way in both technological innovation and productivity, Europe has lagged behind. According to Bergeaud, one of the biggest culprits is underinvestment in research and development (R&D).
“Europe’s R&D spending has been stuck around 2.2% of GDP for years,” he notes. “The United States is closer to 3.2%. That may sound like a small difference, but in economic terms, it’s enormous—amounting to roughly €100 billion annually in lost potential innovation.”
China, meanwhile, has matched Europe’s spending levels but is climbing quickly, positioning itself to challenge U.S. dominance in AI and other emerging technologies.
This gap in investment has real consequences. “If Europe isn’t developing the technologies of the future, we’ll end up using ones developed elsewhere—technologies that might not align with our regulations, our labor models, or our values,” Bergeaud says.
Why Productivity Matters More Than Ever
In his work, Bergeaud repeatedly returns to one core theme: productivity is the key to prosperity. “GDP growth is the sum of productivity gains and the increase in total work hours,” he explains. “But we’re seeing stagnation on both fronts.”
Europe’s aging population is working fewer hours, and without meaningful productivity improvements, that leaves little room for economic growth. “Each year that we fail to act represents a missed opportunity—roughly one percentage point of GDP growth we’re not achieving,” he adds.
This isn’t just a macroeconomic concern. Low productivity translates into stagnating wages, constrained public services, and growing inequalities. For younger generations entering the workforce, it means fewer opportunities and a slower climb up the economic ladder.
Education and Inclusion: The Foundations of Growth
For Bergeaud, the way forward begins with education. “We need to train far more people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—especially women, who are still vastly underrepresented in these fields,” he stresses.
He argues that closing the gender gap in technology could unleash enormous untapped potential. “It’s not just a matter of fairness—it’s an economic imperative. More diverse teams lead to better innovation, and we need all the brainpower we can get.”
Bergeaud also points out that public investment in research, while important, isn’t enough on its own. “France already spends a significant amount on public research. The real issue is the lack of private sector involvement. In the U.S., companies are major contributors to R&D. In France and much of Europe, that ecosystem still isn’t fully developed.”
He cites the 2010 LabEx (Laboratories of Excellence) initiative in France as an example of what can work. The program fostered partnerships between top-tier academic labs and industry leaders to accelerate innovation and turn scientific discoveries into practical applications. “We need more of that,” he says.
AI: The Next Industrial Revolution
For Bergeaud, artificial intelligence represents both a challenge and an opportunity. “AI is reshaping entire industries—manufacturing, healthcare, finance, education. It’s not a buzzword; it’s a new infrastructure,” he says.
But he worries that Europe is already falling behind. “We missed the boat on the digital revolution in the 1990s and 2000s. That mistake cost us in terms of global competitiveness, and we’re still playing catch-up. If we miss this second wave—AI—we might not get a third chance.”
The danger, he says, isn’t just economic. “When you depend on foreign technologies, you also import their underlying assumptions—on data privacy, on labor markets, on how decisions are made. If we want to protect our values, we have to build our own systems.”
A European Response, Not Just National Solutions
Bergeaud is clear that these aren’t challenges any single country can tackle alone. “We need a coordinated European approach to innovation,” he argues. “That means aligning public investments, standardizing regulations to facilitate cross-border collaboration, and creating a real single market for tech and research.”
In his view, one of Europe’s strengths is its diversity of talent and institutions. But to harness that strength, it needs better integration and more strategic thinking.
“We don’t lack ideas or capabilities,” he says. “What we lack is a coherent vision and the political will to execute it at scale.”
The Cost of Inaction
Despite his warnings, Bergeaud doesn’t see the future in bleak terms. He’s an optimist—but a pragmatic one. “Europe has everything it needs to thrive: a strong educational system, world-class researchers, and a highly skilled workforce. But we need to invest accordingly.”
Failure to do so, he warns, won’t just mean slower growth. It could mean watching Europe gradually cede its place in the global economic hierarchy.
“In a world increasingly driven by AI and smart technologies, standing still is equivalent to falling behind,” he concludes. “We’ve already missed one technological shift. We simply can’t afford to miss another.”