Political economy is the study of production and trade and their relations with law, custom and government; and with the distribution of national income and wealth. As a discipline, political economy originated in moral philosophy, in the 18th century, to explore the administration of states' wealth, with "political" signifying the Greek word polity and "economy" signifying the Greek word "okonomie" (household management). The earliest works of political economy are usually attributed to the British scholars Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, and David Ricardo, although they were preceded by the work of the French physiocrats, such as François Quesnay (1694–1774) and Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727–1781).
Political economics is split into two sections: Classical Political Economy and Modern Political Economy. Classical Political Economy studies the works of philosophers such as Machiavelli, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx. Modern Political Economy, on the other hand, studies the work of modern philosophers, economists, and political scientists such as John Maynard Keynes, Milton Freidman, and Friedrich Hayek.