Reply #4: From the Responses You've Received So Far

[On the Road]

Looks like a lot of people who have taken economics courses don't even recognize political economics as a field. (Comparing economic differences among various political systems = comparative economics.) That bears out the author's point that the field is not being taught and has fallen into disfavor.

It is still very important, however. There is a lot of bad economics floating around these days from both the right and left, and comparative economics should be the antidote. Some institutions like Stanford even offer PhD programs:

Political Economics is an interdisciplinary field focusing on the non-market, collective, and political activity of individuals and organizations.... The intellectual foundations of the program are rational choice theory, positive political theory, theories of collective action, institutional analysis, and analysis of political competition and equilibrium. Specific fields of inquiry include regulation, distributive politics, elections, corporate politics, political participation and collective action, interest groups, constitutional choice, legislative behavior and organization, judicial institutions, bureaucracies, comparative institutions, cooperative political economy, macro political economy, law and economics, and business and government.

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/phd/fields/pe/index.html