Political Economy

The topic of this year's annual meeting, "Political Economy", has, at least, two dimensions. The first one is the new discussion of the role of government in a modern democratic market society. As I discussed two years ago at the same occasion, the great financial and economic crisis of the recent years lead us to reconsider this role. The second dimension is to what extent political processes are topics of economic analyses or, to state it somewhat differently, the relation between ‘Economics' (Volkswirtschaftslehre) on the one and ‘Political Economy' (Politische Ökonomie) on the other hand. Both topics are interrelated.