A Cluster Analysis of Bank Lending Behavior by Using Self-Organizing Map: The Case of Japan

Abstract

This paper provides a cluster analysis of the bank lending behavior in Japan from 1977 to 2002, in which the bubble economy occurred. The self-organizing map is used for the clustering. This clustering method is a type of artificial neural network and enables us to visualize the similarities among the high-dimensional data on bank lending. A result of clustering indicates that this time period is classified into two periods: before and after 1992. Moreover, we successfully extract the characteristics of bank lending behavior on 8 borrower sectors from another clustering result.