The Elite Placement Power of Professors of Law and Economic Sciences

This chapter examines conceptual framework and formulates hypotheses about the characteristics of professors and their PhD networks. It analyses empirically the size and composition of the networks of PhDs of professors of the disciplines and discusses the results. The chapter focuses on two disciplines of the Swiss academic field: law and economic sciences. It examines two research questions: how do the size and the composition of the professors' PhD networks evolve over time? how do the networks of professors of law and of economic sciences differ in terms of composition? The chapter explains the size and composition of networks which potentially possess these reputational and multiplying characteristics of social capital: networks of PhDs. It examines two aspects of the social capital of professors of law and economic sciences: its composition in terms of elite sector and size. The chapter explains a decline of the placement power of the professors of both disciplines in the second half of the twentieth century.