Page - (000111) - in Knowledge and Networks

103© The Author(s) 2017 J. Glückler et al. (eds.), Knowledge and Networks, Knowledge and Space 11, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45023-0_6 Chapter 6 (Post)graduate Education Markets and the Formation of Mobile Transnational Economic Elites Sarah Hall This chapter is set within the resurgence of interest in economic elites across the social sciences (see, for example, Daloz, 2010 ; Savage & Williams, 2008 ). Clearly understanding the activity of economic elites, including those who work in the fi nancial services focused on in this chapter, is not an entirely new endeavor within economic geography and the broader social sciences (see, for example, McDowell, 1997 ; Thrift, 1994 ). Building on this work, however, the recent and growing interest in elites marks the development of a more sustained academic engagement aimed at understanding not only the background of elites but also the nature of their work and its signifi cant implications for the global economy. Beyond the academy, this devel- oping interest in elites has received considerable impetus from the 2007 to 2008 fi nancial crisis and the ensuing recession because of how the elites’ working prac- tices , particularly those undertaken by investment bankers in fi nancial services in the area of securitization (the process of transforming an illiquid asset into a secu- rity), which are argued to have been central to both causing the crisis and contribut- ing to its geographically disparate consequences (Tett, 2009 ). Inspired by this growing interest in elites and their working practices, I focus in this chapter on the role of postgraduate education in facilitating entry into—and upward career progression within—early- career labor markets in investment bank- ing in London’s international fi nancial district. I take as my starting point the con- siderable attention that has been paid to the role of educational background in elite formation, led by the work of Bourdieu (1989/ 1996 ). The development of this work, particularly in the sociology of education, has documented how individuals strategi- cally accumulate credentials in order to secure positional advantage vis-à-vis other job seekers in their chosen labor market (see, in particular, Brown & Hesketh, 2004 ). I develop this literature by examining how education beyond the fi rst degree S. Hall (*) School of Geography , University of Nottingham , Sir Clive Granger Building , Nottingham NG7 2RD , UK e-mail: sarah.hall@nottingham.ac.uk