Chris Ragan received his B.A. in economics from the University of Victoria, his M.A. from Queen's University, and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1990. He then joined the Department of Economics at McGill University in Montreal, where he has taught graduate courses in macroeconomics and international finance and undergraduate courses in macroeconomic theory and policy, current economic issues, and financial crises.
Over the years he has taught principles of economics (micro and macro) to thousands of students at McGill and maintains a reputation on campus as being "super excited" about economics. In 2007, Chris Ragan was awarded the Noel Fieldhouse Teaching Award from McGill for teaching excellence. In 2017, he was became as the inaugural Director of McGill's Max Bell School of Public Policy.
Professor Ragan's research focuses mainly on the design and implementation of macroeconomic policy in Canada. He has been privileged to serve the federal government in Ottawa as Special Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at the Department of Finance, and most recently as a member of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth. From 2014 to 2019, he was the chair of Canada's Ecofiscal Commission, a six-year project of independent economists and advisors to promote the greater use of pollution pricing in the Canadian economy.