In a career filled with honours and awards, Queen’s University economics professor James MacKinnon has earned two new accolades. He has received the Canadian Economics Association’s lifetime achievement award as well as its Mike McCracken Award for Economic Statistics.

“Being named a fellow of the CEA is its highest honour, an award for a lifetime of achievements,” Dr. MacKinnon says. “It’s quite an elite group and I’m honoured to be a part of it.”

The McCracken Award recognizes theoretical and applied contributions to the development or use of economic statistics in Canada. He shares the award with former Queen’s faculty member Russell Davidson, currently a professor at McGill University. There are currently only 15 CEA fellows.

“It’s nice to be recognized by people not just interested in theoretical econometrics,” says Dr. MacKinnon. “We have always tried to make our work accessible and oriented to people actually using it. It’s like developing tools for surgery - if you can’t get the surgeons to use the tools, there is no point in creating the tools. The McCracken Award shows that my work is useful.”

Since 1975, Dr. MacKinnon has published more than 80 articles in the field of econometrics and has authored two textbooks, numerous book chapters and various reviews. Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data. Its aims are to estimate economic relationships and test economic theories.

Along with that research output, Dr. MacKinnon has been the manager of the Journal of Applied Econometrics data archive since founding it in 1994, has been on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Econometrics and the Canadian Journal of Economics, an associate editor of the Journal of Econometrics and Economics and Statistics. He also served as vice-president and president of the CEA and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

As for the future, Dr. MacKinnon isn’t considering retirement any time soon despite decades of research and teaching. “There is always something interesting to do, so I fully intend on continuing to work. The discipline is getting bigger and I want to remain a part of it.”

Read more about Dr. MacKinnon on the CEA website.