The Department of Philosophy, in conjunction with the Department of Economics and the Department of Political Science, offers PPE as an interdisciplinary concentration program in political economy. This is a broad field that brings together three major approaches to understanding human beings and their social and political interactions. Political economy integrates the study of the relationships of government, political processes, property, production, markets, trade, distribution and other economic, political, and social phenomena from the standpoint of assessing these arrangements with respect to the interests and progress of humanity.

The PPE concentration provides Michigan undergraduates with an integrated interdisciplinary program of study. It will stress analytic rigor and critical reasoning, and is unique in combining normative inquiry, empirical methods, and formal tools of analysis. Core courses will expose students to a wide range of analytical tools and research methods in the social sciences, and will seek to foster the critical reasoning and rhetorical skills that are essential for philosophical writing and argumentation.

PPE 300 will serve as an introduction to the field and is open to students interested in exploring political economy even if they have not declared a PPE concentration. The analytic frameworks will be presented in a nontechnical way.

PPE 400 is the Capstone seminar for non-Honors students in the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics concentration. One or two issues or themes in political economy will be selected for intensive investigation from multiple perspectives: normative, empirical, formal, and interpretive. Discussion will stress integration of these perspectives and how each affects the questions, conceptual frameworks, and methodological choices of the others.

PPE 401 is the Honors thesis prep seminar for Honors PPE concentrators.