The structures of social interaction affect individual behavior and economic performance in important ways. This leads us to ask: does the architecture of social interaction exhibit particular patterns and are these patterns stable over time? We examine interaction among economists by looking at...

This paper examines the small world hypothesis. The first part of the paper presents empirical evidence on the evolution of a particular world: the world of journal publishing economists during the period 1970-2000. We find that in the 1970's the world of economics was a collection of islands....

This paper examines the small world hypothesis. The first part of the paper presents empirical evidence on the evolution of a particular world: the world of journal publishing economists during the period 1970-2000. We find that in the 1970's the world of economics was a collection of islands....

We study the evolution of social distance among economists over the period 1970-2000. While the number of economists has more than doubled, the distance between them, which was already small, has declined significantly. The key to understanding the short average distances is the observation that...