Political economy is a branch of political science and economics studying economic systems and their governance by political systems. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour markets and financial markets, as well as phenomena such as growth, distribution, inequality, and trade, and how these are shaped by institutions, laws, and government policy. Originating in the 16th century, it is the precursor to the modern discipline of economics. Political economy in its modern form is considered an interdisciplinary field, drawing on theory from both political science and modern economics.
Public choice, or public choice theory, is "the use of economic tools to deal with traditional problems of political science". Its content includes the study of political behavior. In political science, it is the subset of positive political theory that studies self-interested agents and their interactions, which can be represented in a number of ways—using standard constrained utility maximization, game theory, or decision theory. It is the origin and intellectual foundation of contemporary work in political economy.
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, risk of growing political bribery, and potential national decline.
Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.
The Progressive utilization theory (PROUT) is a socioeconomic and political philosophy created by the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. He first conceived of PROUT in 1959. Its proponents (Proutists) claim that it exposes and overcomes the limitations of capitalism, communism and mixed economy. Since its genesis, PROUT has had an economically progressive approach, aiming to improve social development in the world. It is in line with Sarkar's Neohumanist values which aim to provide "proper care" to every being on the planet, including humans, animals and plants.
Articles in economics journals are usually classified according to JEL classification codes, which derive from the Journal of Economic Literature. The JEL is published quarterly by the American Economic Association (AEA) and contains survey articles and information on recently published books and dissertations. The AEA maintains EconLit, a searchable data base of citations for articles, books, reviews, dissertations, and working papers classified by JEL codes for the years from 1969. A recent addition to EconLit is indexing of economics journal articles from 1886 to 1968 parallel to the print series Index of Economic Articles.
Common ownership refers to holding the assets of an organization, enterprise or community indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or groups of members as common property.
Cooperative economics is a field of economics that incorporates cooperative studies and political economy toward the study and management of cooperatives.
In economics, distribution is the way total output, income, or wealth is distributed among individuals or among the factors of production. In general theory and in for example the U.S. National Income and Product Accounts, each unit of output corresponds to a unit of income. One use of national accounts is for classifying factor incomes and measuring their respective shares, as in national Income. But, where focus is on income of persons or households, adjustments to the national accounts or other data sources are frequently used. Here, interest is often on the fraction of income going to the top x percent of households, the next x percent, and so forth, and on the factors that might affect them.
Lars Osberg has been a member of the Economics Department at Dalhousie University since 1977. He also worked for a brief period at the University of Western Ontario. He is well known internationally for his contributions in the field of economics. His major research interests are the measurement and determinants of inequality, social exclusion and poverty, measurement of economic well-being, leisure co-ordination and economic well-being, time use and economic development, economic insecurity.
Steven Pressman is an American economist. He is a former Professor of Economics and Finance at Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. He has taught at the University of New Hampshire and Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, confiscation, divorce or tort law. The term typically refers to redistribution on an economy-wide basis rather than between selected individuals.
Housing inequality is a disparity in the quality of housing in a society which is a form of economic inequality. The right to housing is recognized by many national constitutions, and the lack of adequate housing can have adverse consequences for an individual or a family. The term may apply regionally, temporally or culturally. Housing inequality is directly related to racial, social, income and wealth inequality. It is often the result of market forces, discrimination and segregation.
In the United States, racial inequality refers to the social inequality and advantages and disparities that affect different races. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or racism and prejudice, especially against minority groups.
William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. is an American economist and social sciences researcher. Darity's research spans economic history, development economics, economic psychology, and the history of economic thought, but most of his research is devoted to group-based inequality, especially with respect to race and ethnicity. His 2005 paper in the Journal of Economics and Finance established Darity as the 'founder of stratification economics.' His varied research interests have also included the trans-Atlantic slave trade, African American reparations and the economics of black reparations, and social and economic policies that affect inequities by race and ethnicity. For the latter, he has been described as "perhaps the country’s leading scholar on the economics of racial inequality."
The Review of Black Political Economy is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1970 publishing research on the economic status of African-Americans, the African diaspora, and other non-white marginalized populations. It is affiliated with the National Economic Association and is published by SAGE Publishing. Individual memberships can be acquired through membership in the National Economic Association or through direct subscription.. The journal focuses on research that can inform policies to reduce racial, gender, and ethnic economic inequality. The journal is also a member of the Committee on Public Ethics (COPE).
Sanjiv M. Ravi Kanbur, is T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He worked for the World Bank for almost two decades and was the director of the World Development Report.
The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Rehoboth, Alabama, that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women as a way to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.
Rhonda Michèle Williams was an American professor, activist and political economist whose work combined economics with multiple other social fields including race and gender analysis, law, politics, public policy and cultural studies. She aimed to show how the examination of the roles of race and gender in economics benefitted from an inclusive approach rather than a separate and fragmented analysis in order to ensure that issues of economic inequality and discrimination were aptly addressed. Williams was also noted as being consistent in aligning her own ethics with economic analysis resulting in a legacy in the political economy of race and gender.
Cooperation Jackson is a network of worker cooperatives in Jackson, Mississippi, United States. It aims to develop a series of independent but connected democratic institutions to empower workers and residents of Jackson, particularly to address the needs of poor, unemployed, Black and Latino residents. The development of Cooperation Jackson has been heavily inspired by the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is also a federation of cooperatives, and by historical cooperative movements as described in works by W. E. B. Du Bois and in the book Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard.
