Benoit Perron earned his PhD in Economics from Yale University in 1998, and joined the Université de Montréal Department of Economics that same year.

He is a researcher with the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative (CIREQ) and the Centre for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO).

His research concerns time series econometrics. More specifically, he is working on developing panel unit root tests and on the long-run properties of financial returns.