政治經濟學是近年來熱門的研究領域，無論是在分析的架構、研究的題材、和運用的方法上都有長足的進展。從分析架構出發，可以觀察出三項政治經濟學的發展趨勢。首先，是從單一層次的分析(國際/國內)到整合層次的分析(國際-國內)，研究者越來越注意國際與國內的連結與互動，最具代表性的即是「雙層賽局」的看法。其次，則是從對單一國家的政治經濟分析，到比較研究的開展，尤其是「比較制度優勢」的概念，最具理論意涵。最後，是從共時性的分析到貫時性的分析，如何處理時間與歷史的問題，是「理性選擇制度論」與「歷史制度論」論辯的核心。由此三項發展趨勢可以發現，政治經濟學分析架構已逐漸從單一層次、靜態的個案分析，逐漸走向整合層次、動態的比較研究。並可進而勾勒出一政治經濟學分析架構的類別體系，運用此類別體系，可以界定政治經濟學研究的相對位置與屬性，並找出進一步延伸發展的方向。

Political economy, a popular research field in recent years, makes a
considerable progress in both methods and research frameworks. Through
observing the development of analytic frameworks, we can find that there are three trends of political economy. First of all, it moves from single-level analysis to cross-level analysis. The scholars are putting more and more emphasis on combining international and domestic dimension, for example, the idea of two-level game. Secondly, it transforms from case study on single system to comparative analysis on states, especially on the concept of “comparative institutional advantage.” Finally, it moves from simultaneous analysis to chronic analysis, where the core issue about how to deal with time and history has become a debatable ground between historical institutionalism and rational choice institutionalism. From these three developments, it is obvious that analytic frameworks in political economy has transformed from the static, single-level case studies into dynamic, comparative researches gradually. Furthermore, we can
construct a classification system of political economy; through this classification system, we identify the relative position in the research field, which enables us to find out further developing direction.