Investment-Banking Relationships: 1933-2007

We study the evolution of investment bank relationships with issuers from 1933-2007. The degree to which issuers conditioned upon prior relationship strength when selecting an investment bank declined steadily after the 1960s. The issuer's probability of selecting a bank with strong relationships with its competitors also declined after the 1970s. In contrast, issuers have placed an increasing emphasis upon the quantity and the quality of their investment bank's connections with other banks. We relate the structural changes in bank/client relationships beginning in the 1970s to technological changes that altered the institutional constraints under which security issuance occurs.