He received his Ph.D. in Economics, his M.A. in Political Science and his B.B.A. in Economics from The University of Georgia. Dr. Ragan's research centers on isolating how and to what extent political institutions themselves shape policy. He uses computational modeling (agent-based and simulation) to gain theoretical leverage on the issue. This approach allows Dr. Ragan to place groups of actors with given preferences into different institutional settings in order to gauge the effect of the rules of the game on political outcomes. Most of Dr. Ragan's research examines the ways in which legislative processes affect issues of political economy, such as income redistribution. Dr. Ragan's research has appeared in highly reputed journals such as Public Choice, the Journal of Theoretical Politics and Constitutional Political Economy.