- The Evolution of the Global Corporate Loan Market : A Network Approach

We empirically explore the global corporate loan market. Collaboration among loan lead arrangers through syndicated loans has contributed to the development of a complex social network of banks, but how does this complexity affect syndicate structure, i.e. given the social network of banks, how does the loan syndicate look? We observe that complex loans to opaque borrowers are issued by syndicates with members in structurally important positions within the social network of lead arranging banks. Our innovation in this study is that we characterize banks according to their structural position in the social network formed by lead arrangers in the global corporate loan market.