On
Planning for Development: Transnational Corporations and oligopolistic
capital
Editor: Róbinson Rojas
Sandford |
From Forbes
- May 2013
The World's Biggest Companies
One world: one gigantic market place. This year, 63 countries have Global 2000 entries vs 51 in our
inaugural list in 2004. Forbes Global 2000 are the biggest, most powerful listed companies in the
world. Our justification for using a composite ranking is simple: One metric alone can give a
false impression about corporate size. Our ranking of the world’s biggest companies departs
from lopsided lists based on a single metric, like sales. Instead we use an equal weighting
of sales, profits, assets and market value to rank companies according to size.
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Published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development - UNCTAD
The Universe of the Largest
Transnational Corporations 2007
A UNITED NATIONS Publication
This publication is part of a new series of current studies on FDI and
development
published by UNCTAD. The series aims to contribute to a better
understanding of how
transnational corporations (TNCs) and their activities impact on
development. The present
study quantifies and analyses the past and current trends on the degree
of internationalization
of the largest TNCs as well as TNCs from developing economies. It aims
at stimulating
discussion and further research on the subjects addressed.
The study was prepared by J. François Outreville under the overall
guidance of Anne
Miroux and Hafiz Mirza. Jovan Licina provided research assistance,
Katia Vieu provided
secretarial assistance and desktop publishing was done by Teresita
Ventura.
The text benefited from comments and feedback by Torbjörn Fredriksson,
Masataka
Fujita, Jeremy Clegg, Kalman Kalotay, Guoyong Liang, Michael Lim,
Nicole Moussa, Shin
Ohinata and Thomas Pollan.
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New York University Law Students for Human Rights
This paper is authored by the Law Students for Human Rights at New York
University School of Law. It was prepared at the
request of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food
to inform a multi-stakeholder consultation convening on
June 19-20, 2009 in Berlin, Germany on the role of the agribusiness
sector in the realization of the right to food
Transnational Corporations and the right to
Food
Aaron Bloom, Colleen Duffy, Monica Iyer, Aaron Jacobs;Smith,and Laura
Moy - 2009
It is both ironic and tragic that
eighty percent of the world’s hungry are food producers.
Fifty percent of these are small-hold farmers, twenty percent are farm
workers, and ten percent
are pastoralists and fishermen. The other twenty percent of the world’s
hungry are made up of
the urban poor, who are acutely affected by rising food prices. In this
context, the Transnational
Corporations (“TNCs”) that operate in the food sector are crucially
important in the struggle
against hunger.
Not only is there a grave power imbalance between TNCs and the
small-hold
farmers and farm workers who supply them, but these TNCs also directly
employ approximately
700 million wage workers, some of whom are among those who have the
least access to
adequate food.
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Over the last 70 years or so, an international
capitalist class have been trying to create a world order ruled by
oligopolistic capital. U.S. ruling elites have being leading this
process. After the collapse of bureaucratic socialism in the 1980s they
are implementing a Project for the New
American Century which is unleashing, once again,
U.S. State Terrorism all over the world. To understand better how the
international capitalist class enforces its domination mainly through
U.S. State Terrorism, I include here two texts ( Carroll & Carson,
and Fraser & Beeston). More reading on this is available below
and at http://www.rrojasdatabank.info/pfpc. (Dr. Róbinson
Rojas - 2003)
W. K.
Carroll & C. Carson - 2003
Forging a New Hegemony?
The Role of Transnational Policy Groups in the Network and Discourses
of Global Corporate Governance
This study situates five top transnational
policy-planning groups within the larger structure
of corporate power that is constituted
through interlocking directorates among the
world’s largest companies. Each group makes a
distinct contribution toward transnational capitalist
hegemony both by building consensus
within the global corporate elite and by educating
publics and states on the virtues of one
or another variant of the neoliberal paradigm.
Analysis of corporate-policy interlocks reveals
that a few dozen cosmopolitans —primarily
men based in Europe and North America and
actively engaged in corporate management—
knit the network together via participation
in transnational interlocking and/or multiple
policy groups.
As a structure underwriting
transnational business activism, the network is
highly centralized, yet from its core it extends
unevenly to corporations and individuals positioned
on its fringes.
The policy groups pull the
directorates of the world’s major corporations
together, and collaterally integrate the lifeworld
of the global corporate elite, but they do so
selectively, reproducing regional differences in
participation. These findings support the claim
that a well-integrated global corporate elite has
formed, and that global policy groups have
contributed to its formation. Whether this elite
confirms the arrival of a transnational capitalist
class is a matter partly of semantics and partly
of substance.
I.
Fraser and M. Beeston:
The Brotherhood
"Who controls
the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the
past."
(from George Orwell, '1984')
Part
1: Introduction. The Main Manipulating Groups
Part
2: The Main Protagonists
Part
3: Economic Control. Steps Towards a Global Bank
Part
4: Political Control
Part
5: The World Army
Part
6: Population Control
Part
7: Who We Are & Mind Manipulation
Part
8: Further Examples of Manipulation
Part
9: The Pharmaceutical Racket
Part
10: Seeing Beyond the Veil
---
Global Policy Groups
whose membership are the transnational corporate elite
-World Economic Forum
-International Chamber of Commerce
-World Business Council for Sustainable Development
-Bilderberg Conference
-Trilateral Commission
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William I. Robinson - 2010
Global Capitalism Theory and the Emergence of
Transnational Elites
The class and social structure of
developing nations has undergone profound
transformation in recent decades as each nation has incorporated into
an increasingly
integrated global production and financial system. National elites have
experienced a
new fractionation. Emergent transnationally-oriented elites grounded in
globalized
circuits of accumulation compete with older nationally-oriented elites
grounded in more
protected and often state-guided national and regional circuits. This
essay focuses on
structural analysis of the distinction between these two fractions of
the elite and the
implications for development. I suggest that nationally-oriented elites
are often
dependent on the social reproduction of at least a portion of the
popular and working
classes for the reproduction of their own status, and therefore on
local development
processes however so defined whereas transnationally-oriented elites
are less dependent
on such local social reproduction. The shift in dominant power
relations from
nationally- to transnationally-oriented elites is reflected in a
concomitant shift to a
discourse from one that defines development as national
industrialization and expanded
consumption to one that defines it in terms of global market
integration.
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Elise S. Brezis - 2010
Globalization and the Emergence of a
Transnational Oligarchy
The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution
of recruitment of elites due to
globalization. In the last century, the main change that occurred in
the way the Western
world trained its elites is that meritocracy became the basis for their
recruitment.
Although meritocratic selection should result in the best being chosen,
we show that
meritocratic recruitment may actually lead to class stratification and
auto-recruitment.
In this paper, I show that due to globalization, the stratification
effect will be even
stronger. Globalization will bring about the formation of an
international technocratic
elite with its own culture, norms, ethos, and identity, as well as its
private clubs like the
Davos World Economic Forum. We face the emergence of a transnational
oligarchy.
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Jurgen Brauer and Robert Haywood - 2010
Non-state Sovereign Entrepreneurs and Non-territorial
Sovereign Organizations
We propose two new concepts, of
non-state sovereign entrepreneurs and the non-territorial sovereign
organizations they form, and relate them to issues pertaining to state
sovereignty, governance failures, and violent social conflict over the
appropriation of the powers that accrue to states in modern
international law. The concepts deal with the rise of transboundary
non-state actors, as they impinge on and aim to supplement or supersede
certain powers of state actors. We provide examples to show that
non-state sovereign entrepreneurs and their organizations already
exist. We are interested in their potential role in conflict
transformation.
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T. Nace, September 2003
Gangs of America
The rise of corporate
power and the disabling of democracy
Corporations are the dominant force
in modern life, surpassing even church and state. The largest are
richer than entire nations, and courts have given these entities more
rights than people. To many Americans, corporate power seems out of
control. According to a Business Week/Harris poll released in September
2000, 82 percent of those surveyed agreed that “business has too much
power over too many aspects of our lives.” And the recent revelations
of corporate scandal and political influence have only added to such
concerns.
complete book
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S. Anderson/J. Cavanagh, 2000
Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global
Power
This study examines the economic and
political power of the world’s top 200 corporations. Led by General
Motors, these are the firms that are driving the process of corporate
globalization and arguably benefiting the most from it. The report then
examines the extent to which these firms are fulfilling the second half
of Charles Wilson’s promise by providing “what’s good for the country”
and global society in general. The conclusion of our analysis is that
widespread trade and investment liberalization have contributed to a
climate in which dominant corporations are enjoying increasing levels
of economic and political clout that are out of balance with the
tangible benefits they provide to society.
The study reinforces a strong public distrust of the economic and
political power of corporations.
In September 2000, Business Week magazine released a Business
Week/Harris Poll which showed that between 72 and 82 percent of
Americans agree that “Business has gained too much power over too many
aspects of American life.”3 In the same poll, 74 percent of Americans
agreed with Vice President Al Gore’s criticism of “a wide range of
large corporations, including ‘big tobacco, big oil, the big polluters,
the pharmaceutical companies, the HMOs.’” And, 74-82 percent agreed
that big companies have too much influence over “government policy,
politicians, and policy-makers in Washington.”
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S. Amin - 2000
The political economy of
the Twentieth Century
The twentieth century came to a close
in an atmosphere astonishingly reminiscent of that which had presided
over its birth—the "belle époque" (and it was beautiful, at
least for capital). The bourgeois choir of the European powers, the
United States, and Japan (which I will call here "the triad" and which,
by 1910, constituted a distinct group) were singing hymns to the glory
of their definitive triumph. The working classes of the center were no
longer the "dangerous classes" they had been during the nineteenth
century and the other peoples of the world were called upon to accept
the "civilizing mission" of the West.
The belle époque crowned a century of radical global transformations,
marked by the emergence of the first industrial revolution and the
formation of the modern bourgeois nation-state. The process spread from
the northwestern quarter of Europe and conquered the rest of the
continent, the United States, and Japan. The old peripheries of the
mercantilist age (Latin America and the British and Dutch East Indies)
were excluded from the dual revolution, while the old states of Asia
(China, the Ottoman sultanate, and Persia) were being integrated as
peripheries within the new globalization.
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UNCTAD:
Largest Transnational Corporations
UNCTAD ranks the largest non-financial TNCs by their foreign assets and
presents data on assets, sales and employment in three separate lists:
the 100 largest worldwide, the largest 100 from developing countries,
and the largest 10 from the economies in transition of Eastern Europe
and the CIS.
Financial firms are included in a separate list, the 50 largest
worldwide, because of the different economic functions of assets of
financial firms and the non-availability of relevant data on sales and
employment. UNCTAD ranks the firms according to a Spread Index which
takes into account the number of foreign affiliates and the number of
host countries.
The same ranking, together with an analysis of the relevance of these
TNCs in the world economy, is included in the various issues of the
World Investment Report.
World Investment Report
(the complete series)
|
Chen Chunlai - 1997
Provincial characteristics and foreign direct investment
location decision within China
Foreign direct investment (FDI) is one of the most dramatic features of
China’s move
from a planned economy toward a market economy. Since the passing in
late 1979 of
the Equity Joint Venture Law which granted legal status to FDI in
Chinese territory,
China has gradually liberalised its FDI regime, and an institutional
framework has
been developed to regulate and facilitate such investments. The
liberalisation of the
FDI regime and the improved investment environment have greatly
increased the
confidence of foreign investors in China. Consequently, FDI inflows
into China
increased rapidly after 1979, and particularly during the early 1990s.
The total
accumulated amount of FDI at current prices rose from the initial
US$0.109 billion in
1979 to reach US$133.19 billion in 1995, at an annual growth rate of
55.93 percent.
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Chen Chunlai - 1997
The location determinant of Foreign Direct Investment in
developing countries
However, China is large, and large countries normally receive a large
amount of
FDI inflows. Has China really received more FDI inflows from the world
than it should
have, based on its economic and geographical characteristics? To answer
this question
we have to investigate the location determinants affecting FDI inflows
into developing
countries and establish an empirical norm of the magnitude of aggregate
FDI inflows
from all source countries into a developing host country. Against the
empirical norm, we
can investigate the relative performance of China and other developing
countries in
attracting FDI and say whether or not China has attracted more FDI
inflows than its
potential.
Therefore, this paper is designed to investigate and answer two key
questions.
First, what are the location determinants affecting FDI inflows into
developing
countries? Second, what is the relative performance of China in
attracting FDI inflows
as compared with other developing countries in general and as compared
with its
neighbouring Asian countries in particular?
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Chen Chunlai - 1997
Comparison of investment behaviour of source
countries in China
Since China launched the economic reforms and called for direct foreign
capital
participation in boosting its economic growth and upgrading its overall
production
technology, China has become one of the world most important countries
to host
foreign direct investment (FDI). On the one hand, FDI inflows into
China increased
rapidly after 1979, and particularly during the early 1990s. On the
other hand, more
than 100 countries have invested in China. As a result, since 1993
China has become
the second largest FDI recipient in the world (following the United
States) and the
single largest host country among the developing countries (United
Nations, 1995, p.
54). However, what is the composition of the source countries of FDI in
China? Do
the source countries differ in their investment behaviour? This paper
will discuss and
answer these questions.
|
FORBES 2000: The World's Leading Companies
The
Global 500
World's Richest People
400 Richest
Americans
All
FORBES lists |
Mark Herkenrath & Volker Bornschier - 2003
Transnational
Corporations in World Development – Still the Same Harmful Effects in
an Increasingly Globalized World Economy?
During the last decades of the 20th century the world has experienced
an
impressive increase in the amount and relative importance of
bordercrossing
economic interlinkages. Transnational corporations (TNCs) whose
organizational structures transcend polities and connect various
national societies
have been playing a leading role in this process. The TNC system has
grown
substantially and gained historically unprecedented power in the
political worldeconomy
(UNCTAD 2000: Overview). The old question of how transnational
corporations affect economic and social development in their host
countries thus
arises with renewed relevance.
The findings of previous research result in a quite bleak picture.
Although
standard economic theory argues transnational fi rms to be important
catalysts
of development and worldwide convergence, numerous cross-national
studies on
data from the late 1960s and early 1970s support the opposite view of
dependencia
and world-system theorists. Th ey all show that TNC affi liates rather
add
to inequality and underdevelopment than to socio-economic progress in
their
host countries...
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Citizen portal on brands and corporations
Files |
E. Kolodner - 1994, UNRISD
Transnational Corporations: Impediments or Catalysts of
Social Development?
Although the impact of the operation
of transnational enterprises has long been the subject of much
discussion and controversy, this debate has witnessed a qualitative
change over the past 5 to 10 years. The fall of the Soviet empire, the
decline of social welfare programmes in some European states, and the
predominance of a free market ideology have all tilted this debate in
favour of transnational corporations. Furthermore, the increasing
mobility of capital as well as the growth of international and
bilateral trade agreements have expanded the powers and privileges of
these multinational entities, while minimizing their social
responsibilities. This changing environment is particularly notable in
many developing countries where governments, once extremely suspicious
of foreign corporations, are now exerting efforts to attract TNC
investment.
Despite this shift in thinking and policy, there still exists
substantial disagreement regarding the extent to which transnational
corporate activity promotes positive social development. On the one
hand, proponents for TNCs argue that these entities advance social
goals by providing jobs, paying taxes used for social programmes,
building an industrial base, earning foreign exchange, transferring
technology, raising living standards and contributing to charitable
causes. On the other hand, advocates of enhanced corporate
responsibility note that TNCs have been linked to interference in
sovereign affairs, continued disparities in wealth, poor workplace
conditions, corruption, transfer pricing policies, and a "downward
harmonization" of labour, consumer and environmental standards.
|
The ILO Programme on
Multinational Enterprises and social policy
The Multinational Enterprises Programme (MULTI) is responsible for the
promotion and follow-up of the Tripartite Declaration of Principles
concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy (MNE
Declaration).
The aims of the Declaration are to encourage the positive contributions
of MNEs to economic and social progress, and to minimize and resolve
the difficulties to which their operatonis may give rise.
In addition to the activities related to the MNE Declaration, MULTI is
also responsible for ILO’s participation in the UN Global Compact and
for coordinating ILO’s work on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
|
Róbinson Rojas on:
- Transnational
corporations and developing countries - 1998
"Transnational corporations as engines of growth" have been the main
tenet of every theory of international business since the early 1950s.
By the late 1960s, when nationalist political movements were sweeping
Latin America, Asia, and Africa, the U.S. government organized a
special devise for protecting its own "engines of growth" operating in
developing countries: the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
(OPIC).
It was the legalisation of a triple alliance: U.S. TNCs, government and
army.
OPIC was established by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1969 as a
succesor
to the Agency for International Development (AID) investment guarantee
program for U.S. corporations operating in developing countries. Its
purpose was to insure U.S. investment capital "against losses from
certain specific political risks" including "loss of investment due
to expropriation, nationalization, or confiscation by the foreign
government". (taken from J. Petras and M.Morley, "The United States
and Chile: Imperialism and the Overthrow of the Allende Government",
Monthly Review Press, 1975).
- International capital and intellectual
dishonesty
- 1999
The basic rationale of what loosely is quoted or misquoted as "export-
led growth" has its foundation on the ideological position that
capitalist market always clears, and therefore delivers goods and
services as needed by those members of society who can buy them.
The old triple alliance between the state, domestic monopolic capital
and foreign capital was changed to a double alliance (domestic
monopolic capital and foreign capital) with a political warden (the
state) making sure that the domestic market was firmly in the hands
of the double alliance.
In a more sophisticated fashion, the intellectuals employed/hired by
the
World Bank did put together, in 1991, the following
conceptualization:...
- The poverty of international trade theory
- 1998
Since David Ricardo's "Economic Principles" were published in 1817,
international trade theory has been based on his main tenets, even
when "fine tuned" by Heckschen, Ohlin and Samuelson (trying to build
a neo-classical framework for the theory), Leontieff and Vernon
(attempting the introduction of the concept of technology), and
Krugman (oligopoly theory). By and large, with fine tuning and all,
still the three basic assumptions of the classical trade theory are
the main conceptual structure of the model. That is, capital flows,
technology transfer and labour migration are excluded from the model.
From above:
A.- factor immobility within the borders of a nation-state is the most
crucial assumption of the model;
B.- comparative advantage is determinated before hand, that is before
the opening of an economy to trade, according to the static comparative
approach, dividing economies into capital-abundant and labour-abundant.
- Notes on the philosophy of the capitalist
system - 1999
The world economy today is a multidimensional system within which
factors of production ( capital and labour ) move according to
decisions that are made by transnational agents ( transnational
corporations ) operating in oligopolistic markets.
Trade flows, capital movements, inward and outward foreign direct
investment, technology flows, and labour movements are all regulated
by transnational agents operating in oligopolistic markets.
The world economy joins industrialized societies and less developed
societies in a web built by the main agents dominating these
oligopolistic markets where in less developed societies the
relationships between EXTERNAL and INTERNAL FORCES form a
COMPLEX WHOLE whose structural links are not based on mere external
forms of exploitation and coercion, but are rooted in coincidences
of interests between local dominant classes and international ones,
and, on the other side, are challenged by local dominated groups
and classes ( see Cardoso and Faletto, "Dependency and Development
in Latin America", and Rojas, "Latin America:
Blockages to
Development").
- The 'adjustment' of the world economy - 1997
The 'structural adjustment' of today's world economy, like in earlier
periods, is an interactive process between firms, markets and states.
The process, like in earlier periods, entails that the political
establishment serves the economic establishment, and the economic
establishment serves the most powerful capitals, the latter being, in
the second half of the twentieth century, what in general terms is
defined as 'transnational corporations'.
Both nationally and internationally, markets are dominated by groups of
transnational corporations, the latter creating an economic environment
where perfect competition does not exist, and, because of that, in many
aspects accumulation of capital becomes contradictory with accumulation
of social welfare and also contradictory with sustainable economic
development.
- The transnational corporate system in the late
1990s - 1997
Transnational direct investment in less developed societies in the
1990s is consolidating further the historical regional spheres of
influence by the former colonial powers.
By and large, Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe are
becoming more than ever "spheres of control of production and trade"
by the financial and industrial centers of the world.
Globalization is a task undertaken by the transnational corporate
system,
and the system has three clear centers (United States, Japan, and the
major economies of the European Union). Those centers attract almost
totally the flows of international payment to factors of production,
creating a financial situation where capital flows from poor societies
to rich societies, as it was in the times of colonization and imperial
expansion from the 1500s to the 1930s.
The other main characteristic of the transnational corporate system
during the 1990s was the speeding up of "mergers and acquisitions"
which is one indicator of concentration of capital.
- South Korea, Taiwan and the myth of the "East Asian miracle"
- 1996
The notion of "guided capitalism" was put forward by scholars studying
the post 1945 processes of industrialization in three societies: Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan. The three cases had in common a "singularity",
which was
-special access to United States' domestic market,
-heavy protectionist economic policies accepted by transnational
corporations,
-special flows of grants and aid from the United States,
-special flows of aid in food from the United States when land reform
was in progress, and
-special military treaties, which boosted sectors of the domestic
economies in the three societies.
The above five components of this singularity made possible an economic
system which was accurately described as a "close liaison between
government and business, in which
the government picked industrial winners, promoted them with cheap
bank loans, and pushed them down the path of exporting, transformed
Korea into an industrial powerhouse". (Financial Times, Nov. 7,
1995)...
or,...
- A market-friendly strategy for development -
1998
Since the mid-1970s in the case of Chile and the early 1980s in the
case of the rest of the countries in the region, Latin America have
been applying "a market-friendly strategy for development" (see R.
Rojas, International capital and intellectual
dishonesty). The model, being based on what I call "free-market
fundamentalism", will develop very well defined features, which will
affect one factor of production (labour) in several negative ways while
it will give the other factor of production (capital) the opportunity
to become stronger, and more efficient. (The effects on the pattern of
production, mainly leading to a fractured and dependent capitalist
economy, are described in R. Rojas: 15 years of
monetarism in Latin America: time to scream ). The African side of
the "market-friendly strategy for development" is in S. Rasheed/E.
Chole: Human development: an African perspective
and U. N.: Survey of Economic and Social
conditions in Africa, 1995.
- Notes on agribusiness in the 1990s - 1998
...The above describes the triple alliance between transnational
corporations, domestic big capital and the state, which makes huge
profits from natural resources-intensive production, depleting them at
the highest possible rate of profits. This type of business is called
agribusiness. One of the transnational corporation involved in the
Indonesian fires was Cargill, Inc.
Cargill, Inc is the largest privately owned U.S. corporation. The
company operates in forty countries and has about 150 affiliates and
subsidiaries. Its business interests go from machinery factories in
the U.S. to soybeans in Brazil. Cargill's sister company is called
Tradax, with headquarters in Geneva. It owns grain elevators and
storage
facilities, arranges regional financing with foreign banks, employs a
large number of sales agents, operates its own shipping network, and
deals heavily in buying and selling foreign currencies. In the 1980s,
Cargill was Argentina's leading exporter of wheat, barley, maize and
other grains...and the leading exporter of grain in France.
- Notes on transnational
corporations and the U.N.U.'s course on transnational corporations
--1. The
growth and patterns of international production
--2. The current role of TNCs in the world economy
--3. The determinants of TNC activity
--4. Empirical testing of theories of international
production
--5. Assessing the international market
--6. The impact of TNCs on development
--7. TNCs and the balance of payments
--8. TNCs and employment
--9. TNCs and the nation-state
10. TNCs and economic
integration
11. TNCs in manufacturing
activities
12. TNCs in the service sector
13. The spread of third world
TNCs
14. Reactions to TNCs: national
policies
15. Reactions to TNCs:
multilateral
16. The future of TNCs
17. Bibliography
|
| A bibliography for transnational corporations studies |
ECLAC:
Foreign Investment in
Latin America and the Caribbean, 1998 Report
CONTENTS
Full
1998 Report (746 Kb pdf format)
ABSTRACT
FOREWORD
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
INTRODUCTION: A STATISTICAL CHALLENGE
I.
REGIONAL OVERVIEW (732 Kb) (Includes Abstract,
Foreword, Summary and Introduction)
A.
RECENT TRENDS IN FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT (FDI) FLOWS
1. The overall situation
2. The situation in Latin America and the Caribbean
3. FDI modalities
4. Major transnational corporations in the region
5. Conclusions and prospects for 1998
B.
PRINCIPAL DESTINATIONS FOR FDI IN LATIN AMERICA
1. Mexico
2. Argentina
3. Colombia
4. Chile
5. Venezuela
6. Peru
C.
INTRAREGIONAL INVESTMENT: A NASCENT PROCESS IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE
CARIBBEAN
1. Chilean investments in other countries
2. Investment by the member countries of Mercosur
3. Mexican investment abroad
II.
BRAZIL: FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT AND CORPORATE STRATEGIES
(240 Kb)
A. THE
PRESENCE OF FOREIGN CAPITAL IN THE BRAZILIAN ECONOMY
1. The debt crisis: Brazil’s gradual decline as an FDI destination
2. Brazil recovers its position as the preferred destination for
international investors
3. The new FDI patterns in the second half of the1990s
B.
INTERPRETING THE EXCEPTIONAL GROWTH IN RECENT FDI INFLOWS TO BRAZIL
1. The new economic environment and the reaction of transnational
corporations present in Brazil
2. Deregulation and privatizations: new openings for foreign investors
3. Market size: the most long-standing advantage of the Brazilian market
C.
CONTRIBUTION OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT TO THE BRAZILIAN ECONOMY
1. Transnational corporations and the balance of payments
2. Transnational corporations and exports
D.
CONCLUSIONS
III.
UNITED STATES: INVESTMENT AND CORPORATE STRATEGIES IN LATIN AMERICA AND
THE CARIBBEAN (252 Kb)
A.
UNITED STATES: THE WORLD’S LARGEST SOURCE AND DESTINATION OF INVESTMENT
B.
UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA: A NEW INVESTMENT RELATIONSHIP
1. United States foreign direct investment in Latin America and the
Caribbean in the 1990s
C. THE
MAIN INDUSTRIES OF INTEREST TO UNITED STATES INVESTORS IN LATIN AMERICA
AND THE CARIBBEAN
1. The production of motor vehicles in Latin America: an improved
competitive position within NAFTA and access to Mercosur
2. Assembly of manufactures in Mexico and the Caribbean Basin
3. Services and natural resources: a new frontier for United States
investors
D.
CONCLUSIONS
IV.
THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY: INVESTMENT AND CORPORATE STRATEGIES IN LATIN
AMERICA (165 Kb)
A. THE
JAPANESE CHALLENGE TO THE WORLD AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
1. Technological change in the automotive industry
2. Competition in the main markets
3. Competitive advantages and repercussions of the "Toyota System"
B.
EVOLUTION AND CURRENT CONDITION OF THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY IN LATIN
AMERICA
1. Mexico: consolidation of a continental automotive industry under
NAFTA
2. Argentina and Brazil: differing views of the automotive industry
under Mercosur
C.
CONCLUSIONS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
(56 Kb)
Foreign investment in
Latin America and the Caribbean, 2002 |
UNCTAD:
World Investment Report
FDI
Statistics Online
Country
Fact Sheets
UNCTAD X:
documents and papers
|
| UNCTAD: World Investment Report 1998: Trends and
Determinants(press) |
| UNCTAD: World
Investment Report 1999:FDI and the challenge of development |
| UNCTAD: The
largest transnational corporations and corporate strategies. 1999 |
| U.S. Largest
500 Corporations |
| The World's Largest 500 Corporations |
| Ewe-Ghee, Determinants of, and the relation between, foreign
direct investment and growth, 2001 |
Corporate Watch:
How to research
transnational corporations |
| Corporate Watch UK:
"The Earth is not dying, is being killed, and
those who are killing it have names and addresses" |
| |
| ELDIS: Transnational
corporations |
Multinational Monitor
(journal) |
M. Butler - 1986
How Europe can fight the multinationals
I have heard respectable people argue that it does not matter if
European high technology companies are taken over one after the other
by American or Japanese multinationals. If the market so decrees let
no man intervene!
This needs to be thought through. The multinationals are in Europe TO
PROMOTE THEIR PARENT COMPANIES' strategy for gaining world
market share and MAXIMISING THEIR LONG-TERM PROFITS. As part of that
strategy they may do some manufacturing in Europe and even some
research. BUT THEIR POLICY IS DECIDED IN THEIR HEADQUARTERS AND THE
MAJORITY OF THEIR PROFITS FLOW THERE. Once they have knocked out or
taken over the European competition, they are free to shift the balance
of their investment in plant and research towards home OR TO
OTHER MARKETS YET TO BE CONQUERED.
|
D.Caverhill - 1994
TNCs and the world economy.1994
The expansion of Transnational Corporations since the 1950s has been
the
major growth area of the world economy, measured against indicators
including exports, Gross National Product, and world trade movements.
There has been no economic organization in post-industrial society that
has grown as quickly.
Transnational corporations affect and change almost every element of
economic, social and political life in the areas where they operate.
While
the largest amounts of foreign direct investment by transnationals are
currently made within developed countries, history has shown that TNCs
go anywhere their strategic objectives can be met according to a
carefully
considered cost/benefit/risk analysis.
|
| Staying Alive
[Labour in the global information economy] |
| Transnational
Corporate Research *** |
| EcoForum: The Multilateral
Agreement on Investment |
From Global Policy Forum
General Articles on
Transnational Corporations
Who controls the brave
new globalized world? States or Transnational Corporations (TNCs)? This
page keeps track of the argument: how much power do TNCs have? What are
the areas where they exercise their power? And, most importantly, how
can citizens gain democratic control over these institutions?
----------------------- |
| Transnational
Institute |
| Corporate Europe Observatory |
Corporate Europe Observer (1999)
TNC
control over Global Trade Politics |
| Investment Watch |
OECD.-
Multilateral Agreement in Investment:
Documentation from the negotiations |
| WHA: Transnational
corporations |
1.
The World Bank's environmental record
2. Structural adjustment: banking on
poverty
3. Transnational corporations: the record
[1]
4. Transnational corporations: the record
[2]
5. Transnational corporations: the record
[3]
6. Forum on labour in the global economy
7. Focus: women and multinationals
8. Globalization, agricultural employment
and food security
9. Reconciling trade and the environment
10. Concepts and principles of
international law
11. Trade and sustainable
development
12. Shaping the environmental
agenda of the 21st century
13. FAO - Agreement on
Agriculture, December 1993
14. Industrial development
global report 1995
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
P. De Grauwe (University of Leuven and
Belgian Senate) and
F. Camerman (Belgian Senate) - 2002
How big are the big multinational companies
Multinational corporations are
increasingly seen as excessively big and powerful, and as
having dramatically increased in size and power. This perception has
led to the view that
the big corporations are threatening democratic institutions of the
nation-states and that
they pervert the cultural and social fabric of countries.
In this paper we analyse the size of large corporations and the recent
trends in this size.
Using value-added data (instead of sales) we find that multinationals
are surprisingly
small compared to the GDP of many nation-states. In addition, if
anything, the size of
multinationals relative to the size of nations has tended to decline
somewhat during the
last 20 years. Finally, we argue that there is little evidence that the
economic and political
power of multinationals has increased in the last few decades.
|
United Nations Organization - 1 May 1974
"The General Assembly
Adopts the following Declaration:
Declaration on the Establishment of a New International
Economic Order
We, the Members of the United Nations,
Having convened a special session of the General Assembly to study for
the first time the problems of raw materials and development, devoted
to the consideration of the most important economic problems facing the
world community,
Bearing in mind the spirit, purposes and
principles of the Charter of the United Nations to promote the economic
advancement and social progress of all peoples,
Solemnly proclaim our united determination to
work urgently for THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC
ORDER based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common
interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their
economic and social systems which shall correct inequalities and
redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening
gap between the developed and the developing countries and ensure
steadily accelerating economic and social development and peace and
justice for present and future generations, and, to that end, declare:
1. The greatest and most significant achievement during the last
decades has been the independence from colonial and alien domination of
a large number of peoples and nations which has enabled them to become
members of the community of free peoples. Technological progress has
also been made in all spheres of economic activities in the last three
decades, thus providing a solid potential for improving the well-being
of all peoples. However, the remaining vestiges of alien and colonial
domination, foreign occupation, racial discrimination, apartheid and
neo-colonialism in all its forms continue to be among the greatest
obstacles to the full emancipation and progress of the developing
countries and all the peoples involved. The benefits of technological
progress are not shared equitably by all members of the international
community. The developing countries, which constitute 70 per cent of
the world's population, account for only 30 per cent of the worlds
income. It has proved impossible to achieve an even and balanced
development of the international community under the existing
international economic order. The gap between the developed and the
developing countries continues to widen in a system which was
established at a time when most of the developing countries did not
even exist as independent States and which perpetuates inequality...
Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational
Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights,
U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2003/12/Rev.2 (2003).
|
On integrated international
production
Tables:
Table 1:
Foreign-direct-investment inward flows, by region and economy, 1981-1991
Table
2: Foreign-direct-investment inward and outward stock, 1980, 1985
and 1990
Table
3: The ratio of foreign-direct-investment
inflows to gross domestic capital formation and the ratio of gross
domestic capital formation to gross domestic product, 1971-1975,
1976-1980, 1981-1985, 1986-1991
Table
4: Average annual inflows of foreign direct investment to the Ten
largest developing economies, 1970-1980, 1981-1991
Table
5: New bilateral treaties for the promotion and protection of
foreign direct investment signed or entered into force in 1991 and 1992
Table
6: Changes in main national legislation relating to foreign direct
investment in 1992
Table I.10:
The largest 100 non-financial transnational corporations, ranked by
foreign assets, 1990
Select
list of publications of the UNCTAD Programme on Transnational
Corporations
Questionnaire
|
From World Investment Report 2002:
Transnational Corporations and Exports Competitiveness
Chapter V
International Production System
A. Drivers and features
B. Case studies
C. Conclusions
TNC activities affect the export performance of host countries through
a range of equity and non-equity relationships. What is common to
all of them is that production -and, more broadly, the operations
of a firm- is organized under the common governance of TNCs...In
other words, global markets increasingly involve competition between
entire production systems, orchestrated by TNCs, rather than between
individual factories or firms"
While the growth of international
production systems is well recognized, it
is less well known that there is a growing
tendency for firms, even large TNCs, to
specialize more narrowly and to contract
out more and more functions to independent
firms, spreading them internationally, to take
advantage of differences in costs and logistics.
Some are even opting out of production
altogether, leaving contract manufacturers
to handle it while they focus on innovation
and marketing. The main suppliers and contract
manufacturers are themselves often large
TNCs, with global “footprints” matching those
of their principals and with their own
subcontractors and suppliers. However, TNCs
also increasingly use national suppliers and
contractors in host economies. Specialization
does not stop here: leading TNCs are also
entering into joint innovation arrangements
with other firms – competitors, suppliers
or buyers – and with institutions such as
research laboratories, universities and so
on. Thus, the emerging global production
system is becoming more multifaceted , but
with tighter coordination by lead players
in each international production system.
|
O. Sunkel, 1985
The transnational corporate system
There are some crucial questions relating to the TNC which one
cannot begin to understand, much less to answer, if one does not
have a more realistic picture of contemporary capitalism. The so-called
market has in fact been superseded to a significant degree
by public and private planning. To a very large extent, the visible
hands of the State and the TNC have long replaced the mythical
invisible hand of laissez-faire capitalism, if it ever existed. It
is not really the individual institution of the TNC as such that is
the object of so much attention. There have been individual instances
of large world-wide business organizations in the past which have not
aroused such great concern. The focus is rather on the emergence of a
transnational business system with such a great potential for socially
uncontrolled power and influence that international society finds
itself forced into a profound reorganization in order to accommodate it.
|
UNCTAD:
World Investment Reports:
2005 - TNCs and the internationalization of R&D
2004
- The shift towards services
2003
- FDI Policies for Development: Ntl. and Intl. Perspectives
2002 - TNCs and Export
Competitiveness
2001
- Promoting Linkages
2000
- Cross-border M & A and Development
1999
- FDI and the Challenge of Development
1998
- Trends and Determinants
1997
- TNCs, Market Structure and Competition Policy
1996
- Investment, Trade and International Policy Agreements
1995
- TNCs and Competitiveness
1994 - TNCs, Employment and the
Workplace
1993 - TNCs and Integrated
International Production
1992
- TNCs as Engines of Growth
1991 - The Triad In Foreign Direct
Investment
More...
|
The
Triad (E.U., U.S.A, and Japan) in Foreign Direct Investment
UNCTAD: World Development
Investment 1991
Table
of contents
Introduction
Chapter I
Global Trends
A. The increasing
importance of foreign direct investment
B. Regional distribution
C. Sectoral patterns of foreign direct investment
D. Policies affecting foreign direct investment
Chapter II
Patterns of foreign direct investment in the Triad
A. The Triad members
B. Intra-Triad investment relationships
C. Regional networks of Japanese trasnational corporations
D. The Triad, developing the Central and Eastern European Countries
Chapter III
Interlinkages
A. Foreign direct
investment and international trade
B. Transnational corporations and technology transfer
C. Transnational corporations and financial flows
D. The integrating agents: transnational corporations
Chapter IV
Policy Implications
A. The growing role of
foreign direct investment in the world economy
B. The issue of governance
C. Policy implications for improving investment flows to developing
countries
Annex
Indicators of the significance of foreign affiliates in selected host
economies, mid- to late 1980s.
Selected
UNCTAD publications on Transnational Corporations and Foreign Direct
Investment
Questionnaire
|
London - 4 April 2006
World's
biggest 25 food companies not taking health seriously enough
The world’s top 25 food
companies appear not to be taking the new global diet and health agenda
seriously enough, says an 80 page report from The City University out
today.
Researchers at City’s Centre for Food Policy studied the annual
reports, accounts and HQ websites (to Autumn 2005) of the top 10 food
manufacturers, top 10 food retailers and top 5 foodservice companies
(top 3 fast food and top 2 contract caterers).They were rated for
whether the companies were doing anything about the health agenda
agreed by the world’s governments at the World Health Organisation.
In May 2004, a Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health
was passed by the World Health Assembly (the WHO’s governing body).
This made recommendations to companies as to what they could do to
health tackle the world’s diet crisis – not just obesity but heart
disease, cancers and diabetes.
------------------------- |
| IMF: International
Capital Flows, 2001 |
| Foreign
Policy IN FOCUS
|
| CorpWatch:
Holding Corporations Accountable |
| CorpWatch: Alliance
for a Corporate-Free UN |
The General Agreement on Trade and
Commerce
GATSwatch:
- debate
- corporate
lobbying
-
development
-
education
-
e-commerce
- energy
-
environment
-
financial services
- gender
issues
- health
- labour
rights
- labour
mobility
- libraries
- local
government
- postal
services
-
public services
-
privatisation
- retail /
wholesale
- tourism
-
transport
- water
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