Peter Kennedy

Who is Peter Kennedy?

Peter Kennedy was a Canadian economist who for many years worked at the Simon Fraser University. His most famous work was his noted textbook, A Guide to Econometrics. In this guide, and in a subsequent summary article, he produced Ten Commandments of Applied Econometrics. These are that Thou shalt:

Use common sense and economic theory

Ask the right question

Know the context

Inspect the data

Not worship complexity

Look long and hard at thy results

Beware the costs of data mining

Be willing to compromise

Not confuse statistical significance with substance

Confess in the presence of sensitivity.

He was born in Toronto and grew up close by in Port Credit. He was educated at Queen’s University, graduating in 1965, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where took a PhD in 1968. He worked briefly at Cornell University on 1968 before moving to Simon Fraser University in the same year. He worked there for the next 43 year retiring, and being appointed an emeritus professor, in 2008.