Professor Giarratani received his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University (1970) and his doctorate from West Virginia University (1975). Before his appointment at the University of Pittsburgh in 1979, he was a faculty member in the Department of Economics, Georgetown University. He has held the rank of Professor since 1987. He served as Chair in the Department of Economics from 1992 - 1996, and as Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Arts and Sciences from 1996 - 2000. Professor Giarratani was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University in 1987, 2001, and 2003, and he is a Senior Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge. In 2001, he was appointed founding Director of the Center for Industry Studies, which is part of the prestigious national network of Sloan Industry Centers.

Professor Giarratani's research specialization is in Regional Economics and in the Economics of the Steel Industry. His work is represented in publications concerning regional economic growth and decline, econometric modeling of regions, and structural adjustment in the steel industry. Currently, his research concerns two topics related to the steel industry: (1) the economic geography of market entry based the advent of slab casting by U.S. minimills and (2) an analysis of steel industry clusters in the context of regional economic restructuring. Additionally, he is co-leader of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Globalization II initiative, which examines the importance of global value chains as basis for innovation in electronics industries related to the production of personal computers.

By coordinating the activities of the Committee for Industry Studies, Professor Giarratani works in partnership with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to strengthen and broaden the impact of scholarship concerning modern industries. In this capacity, his work with the Sloan Foundation has helped to establish Industry Studies as a cohesive multi-disciplinary research field with Sloan Industry Centers as its vital core.