ABSTRACT
The rapid propagation of network analysis since the late 1990s has already brought forth interesting contributions to key questions pertaining to finance, such as how social ties between corporate managers and institutional investors shape investment decisions, how investment banks organize the underwriting of securities, how financial institutions share risks, or how incidences of financial instability trigger contagion. In the 1960s, US banks found a very convenient way to circumvent all of their regulatory constraints in one swoop, geographic branching restrictions, interest-rate ceilings on bank deposits and loans, separation of commercial and investment banking, when London sought to extend its global financial centre role by accepting bank deposits and loans denominated in US dollars. This so-called "Eurodollar market" redirected US dollars in international circulation, a by-product of the dollar-based international monetary system known as Bretton Woods, from the official payments system of central banks to a new private banking network operating beyond the reach of the national monetary authorities.
