Peter Kennedy (economist)

Peter Kennedy (1943–2010) was a Canadian economist who taught for many years 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:

1. Use common sense and economic theory
2. Ask the right question
3. Know the context
4. Inspect the data
5. Not worship complexity
6. Look long and hard at thy results
7. Beware the costs of data mining
8. Be willing to compromise
9. Not confuse statistical significance with substance
10. 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 in 1968 before moving to Simon Fraser University that same year. He remained at SFU for the next 43 year and was appointed an emeritus professor in 2008.