Professor Ramirez is a native of Chile and a naturalized U.S. citizen since 1990. He received his Ph. D. in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1984 and has been at Trinity College since 1985. His teaching interests are primarily in the areas of Latin American economic development and international finance and open economy macroeconomics. At the College he usually offers Latin American economic development and Structural Reform in Latin America during the fall term, while international finance and open economy macroeconomics is taught during the spring term. During the spring 2007 term he also taught a course in Time-Series Analysis, with particular emphasis on cointegration and error correction modeling.

Insofar as his research is concerned, it is primarily dedicated to analyzing the challenges and opportunities that Latin American nations face as they attempt to stabilize and reform their economies in an increasingly globalized world. In particular, his work has reviewed and analyzed the impact of IMF-sponsored adjustment and stabilization measures in Argentina, Chile, and Mexico, as well as the mixed success of structural reform programs such as privatization of state-owned firms, deregulation of economic activity, and liberalization of trade and finance. His research has also focused on the economic and institutional determinants of foreign direct investment in Chile and Mexico, as well as the impact of these flows on private capital formation and labor productivity growth in Latin America. More recently, he has published work in the history of economic thought relating to Marx's important analysis of wages and cyclical crises, as well as his insights into the determinants of ground rent.