POLITICAL ECONOMY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does political economy mean? 

• POLITICAL ECONOMY (noun)
  The noun POLITICAL ECONOMY has 1 sense:

1. the branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management

  Familiarity information: POLITICAL ECONOMY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POLITICAL ECONOMY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

economic science; economics; political economy

Hypernyms ("political economy" is a kind of...):

social science (the branch of science that studies society and the relationships of individual within a society)

Meronyms (parts of "political economy"):

economic theory ((economics) a theory of commercial activities (such as the production and consumption of goods))

rent-seeking; rent seeking ((economics) the theory that a person or firm seeks to make money by manipulating the economic environment rather than by making a profit through production or trade)

Domain member category:

monopsony ((economics) a market in which goods or services are offered by several sellers but there is only one buyer)

consumption; economic consumption; usance; use; use of goods and services ((economics) the utilization of economic goods to satisfy needs or in manufacturing)

oligopoly ((economics) a market in which control over the supply of a commodity is in the hands of a small number of producers and each one can influence prices and affect competitors)

moral hazard ((economics) the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it (as by insurance))

easy (obtained with little effort or sacrifice, often obtained illegally)

tight (affected by scarcity and expensive to borrow)

easy (less in demand and therefore readily obtainable)

real (of, relating to, or representing an amount that is corrected for inflation)

nominal (of, relating to, or characteristic of an amount that is not adjusted for inflation)

inflationary (associated with or tending to cause increases in inflation)

deflationary (associated with or tending to cause decreases in consumer prices or increases in the purchasing power of money)

monopoly ((economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller)

productivity ((economics) the ratio of the quantity and quality of units produced to the labor per unit of time)

marginal utility ((economics) the amount that utility increases with an increase of one unit of an economic good or service)

utility ((economics) a measure that is to be maximized in any situation involving choice)

production ((economics) manufacturing or mining or growing something (usually in large quantities) for sale)

capital account ((economics) that part of the balance of payments recording a nation's outflow and inflow of financial securities)

spillover ((economics) any indirect effect of public expenditure)

game theory; theory of games ((economics) a theory of competition stated in terms of gains and losses among opposing players)

economic theory ((economics) a theory of commercial activities (such as the production and consumption of goods))

Gresham's Law ((economics) the principle that when two kinds of money having the same denominational value are in circulation the intrinsically more valuable money will be hoarded and the money of lower intrinsic value will circulate more freely until the intrinsically more valuable money is driven out of circulation; bad money drives out good; credited to Sir Thomas Gresham)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "political economy"):

econometrics (the application of mathematics and statistics to the study of economic and financial data)

finance (the branch of economics that studies the management of money and other assets)

macroeconomics (the branch of economics that studies the overall working of a national economy)

microeconomics (the branch of economics that studies the economy of consumers or households or individual firms)

supply-side economics (the school of economic theory that stresses the costs of production as a means of stimulating the economy; advocates policies that raise capital and labor output by increasing the incentive to produce)

 Context examples 

The books were of the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)