This paper studies the rise of professors of economics and business studies in the
second half of the 20th century in Switzerland. It focuses on three types of power
resources: positions in the university hierarchy, scientific reputation and extraacademic
positions in the economic and political spheres. Based on a biographical
database of N 5 487 professors, it examines how these resources developed from
1957 to 2000. We find that professors of economic sciences were increasingly and
simultaneously successful on all three studied dimensions – especially when
compared to disciplines such as law, social sciences or humanities. This evolution
seems to challenge the notorious trade-off between scientific and society poles of
the academic field: professors of economics and business increased their scientific
reputation while becoming more powerful in worldly positions. However, zooming
in on their individual endowment with capital, we see that the same professors
rarely hold simultaneously a significant amount of scientific and institutional
capital.