This paper analyzes the nature of contemporary political economy. The attempt to distinguish political economy from orthodox economics according to the role played by value‐judgements or policy prescriptions is rejected as misleading. Instead the principal concerns of political economy are identified by reference to six contributory currents of thought, ranging from the critique of neoclassical economics and the reconstruction of Keynesian economics, through the development of Marxist and institutional analyses, to the influence of feminism and environmentalism. The paper concludes with some comments on the place of political economy in the university curriculu