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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics pp 1599–1606Cite as

Political Economy

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Definition

The term “political economy” (PE) is mainly used in two related contexts. First, it is used to denote a multidisciplinary research field in which political scientists, economists, legal scholars, and other social scientists investigate the relationship between the political sphere (most notably “the state”) and the economic system of different societies on Earth at different points in time. Second, social scientists, journalists, and other observers sometimes use the term PE to refer to the observable interaction of politics and business in real-world societies. Focusing on the first context, this entry gives an overview of the research field of political economy (PE) and discusses its relationship to law and economics as a research program.

Positive Political Economy: Analyzing What Is

Within the toolkit of PE, there are basically two different approaches which are currently used to analyze the relationship between politics and the economy: positive PE (explained in this...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science (IfPol), University of Münster, Münster, Germany

    Karsten Mause Prof. Dr

Authors
  1. Karsten Mause Prof. Dr
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karsten Mause Prof. Dr .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRE and University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  2. Faculté d’Economie, Université de Montpellier and LAMETA-UMR CNRS, Montpellier, France

    Alain Marciano

  3. DiGSPES, University of Eastern Piedmont, Alessandria, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

  4. IEL, Torino, Italy

    Giovanni Battista Ramello

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Mause, K. (2019). Political Economy. In: Marciano, A., Ramello, G.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7753-2_367

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