political economy

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The social science that deals with political science and economics as a unified subject; the study of the interrelationships between political and economic processes.
• noun The early science of economics through the 1800s.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun economics Interdisciplinary studies drawing upon economics, law, and political science in explaining how political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system — capitalist, socialist, mixed — influence each other.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

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