The network of global corporate control

A new article by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston posted on arXiv.org explores the international ownership networks of corporations.  The paper investigates network topology and lists core economic actors.

The bow-tie structure of international corporate control networks

From the authors:

The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.