IPE is a thriving sub-discipline that seeks to combine political and economic variables in its analysis of the changing global economy.  Challenging purely economic analysis, one scholar (Andrew Walter) rightly asks, “why do most countries ignore economists and raise barriers to trade?”  In this course, we consider whether there are persistent patterns (national capitalisms), new patterns (globalization and regionalization) and key geographic sites (global cities).  Multinational corporations (MNCs) play a prominent role in the production, consumption and exchange of goods and services in most economies.  One of our objectives is to investigate the ways through which MNCs seek to enhance their positions in a competitive and volatile global economy. We also examine the themes of economic approaches to the environment, food and the global economy, the global illicit economy and the future of Hong Kong logistics.