John Kennes

John Kennes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Aarhus University, Denmark. A Canadian citizen, he has resided and worked in Denmark since 2001, focusing on theoretical frameworks for coordination and exchange problems in economic systems.

• Ph.D. in Economics, University of Western Ontario, 1996

His research centers on directed search theory, analyzing how agents navigate coordination challenges in matching scenarios such as labor markets (workers to firms), marriage markets (men to women), education (schools to children), and credit allocation (borrowers to lenders). He extends this to policy design, examining reputation systems, government transfers, and over-the-counter markets through rigorous theoretical modeling.

Currently leading two Danish Council for Independent Research projects, Kennes investigates how children influence marriage prospects for unwed mothers and assesses public daycare assignment rules' impact on child welfare and parental career trajectories in Denmark. His work bridges microeconomic theory with real-world institutional design.

As an active researcher, he contributes to economics through externally funded projects addressing societal challenges in household dynamics and public resource allocation, with policy implications for Scandinavian welfare systems.