The configuration of a status based model of economic actors: The case of Spanish government debt market

This paper analyses the social structure of the government debt market in Spain from a social network analysis approach. The relational analysis has been limited to the case of the syndicate issuances that took place between 2002 and 2015 and the process whereby lead manager banks choose their partners to underwrite the issue. The main contribution of this paper is the identification of social tie patterns between market participants and their structural equivalence in the market. Furthermore, it reveals how status operates in the market, conferring advantages on those actors with optimum positioning.