Political Economy of Resources

Political economy refers to interdisciplinary studies drawing on economics, law, history, and political science to explain how political institutions, the political environment, and economic systems affect the factors of production, namely, labor, land, and resources. Originally, political economy focused on the conditions under which production and consumption were organized within and among nation states. Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Karl Marx were proponents of this tradition. Today in geography, political economy refers to neo- and post-Marxian interpretations of labor, land, and natural resource exploitation and development and underdevelopment in the global economy. This entry will focus on the latter factor, the political economy of resources.