Krishna Pendakur wins the John Rae Prize

Congratulations to professor Krishna Pendakur who was awarded the 2022 John Rae Prize at the 56th Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association (CEA) this past weekend. 

Awarded biannually to the Canadian economist with the best research record during the last five years, the prize comes with a cash prize of $5,000. Pendakur is the second faculty member from Simon Fraser University to win this prestigious award, with professor Arthur Robson named the university's first recipient back in 2014. 

The John Rae Prize awarding committee "very quickly agreed unannimously" that Pendakur was well-deserving of the award, highlighting his research contributions to top economics journals such as the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Econometrics, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Quantitative Economics, and the Canadian Journal of Economics. "These contributions have a distinct methodological flavour to them and are already influencing how economists think about modeling and measuring consumption and welfare in the household." 

Pendakur's research expertise lies in discrimination and economic inequality, consumer demand as well as semi- and none-parametric econometrics. In recent years, Pendakur has examined various policy-relevant issues including the effect of the Canada Child Benefit on household spending, gender gaps in resource shares within households, governance and income inequality in Indigenous communities, and on the disease burden and policy responses related to mental health and substance abuse.

In their remarks, the awarding committee concluded, "Without a doubt, Krishna Pendakur has produced an outstanding research record centered on an impressive set of methodological papers. He has not lost sight of opportunities to speak directly to policy relevant, substantive issues."