[2] He is the John Elliott Distinguished Chair in Economics at the University of Southern California and has held that position since August 2005.
He has been head of the Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of Iran and the under-secretary of the Iranian Ministry of Education.
He is the recipient of the 1990 George Sell Prize from The Institute of Petroleum, London, the 1992 Royal Economic Society Prize for the best article published in The Economic Journal for the years 1990 and 1991, and the joint recipient of the Econometric Reviews Best Paper Award 2002–2004 for his paper on Long Run Structural Modeling.
He has more than 200 publications in the areas of econometrics, empirical finance, macroeconomics, and the Iranian economy, and is an expert in the economics of Oil and the Middle East.
His daughter, Evaleila Pesaran, is a Lecturer and Fellow in Politics and International Relations at Murray Edwards College at the University of Cambridge and is the author of the book Iran's Struggle for Economic Independence.