The Nobel prize in economics was awarded on Monday to American-Israeli Joel Mokyr, France's Philippe Aghion and Canada's Peter Howitt for work on technology's impact on sustained economic growth.

Mokyr, 79, won one half of the prize "for having identified the prerequisites for sustained growth through technological progress", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

Aghion, 69, and Howitt, 79, shared the other half "for the theory of sustained growth through creative destruction", it added.

John Hassler, chair of the prize committee, told reporters their work answered questions about how technological innovation drives growth and how sustained growth can be maintained.

Mokyr, who is a professor at Northwestern University in the United States, "used historical sources as one means to uncover the causes of sustained growth becoming the new normal", the jury said in a statement.

Aghion and Howitt then examined the concept of "creative destruction", which refers to the process "when a new and better product enters the market, the companies selling the older products lose out".

The economics prize is the only Nobel not among the original five created in the will of Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896.

It was instead created through a donation from the Swedish central bank in 1968, leading detractors to dub it "a false Nobel".

But like the Nobels in chemistry and physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences chooses the winner and follows the same selection process.

The economics prize wraps up this year's Nobel season which honoured research into the human immune system, practical applications of quantum mechanics and the development of new forms of molecular architecture.

The literature prize went to Hungarian author Laszlo Krasznahorkai whose works explore themes of postmodern dystopia and melancholy.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was given the highly watched Nobel Peace Prize.

In a surprise move, Machado dedicated the prize to US President Donald Trump, who had made no secret that he thought he deserved it.

The Nobel economics prize consists of a diploma, a gold medal and a $1.2 million cheque.

The laureates will receive their prizes at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10.

That date is the anniversary of the death in 1896 of scientist Alfred Nobel, who created the prizes in his will.