Core-periphery relations in the international mergers and acquisitions network
 Year:
2020
 Editorial: Applied Econometrics and International Development
This article
studies the transnational corporations’ ownership and investment
relationships between countries. Using Thomson Reuters SDC Platinum
database on mergers and acquisitions and social network analysis
techniques, the paper analyzes the international mergers and
acquisitions network (IMAN), where vertices are 211 countries and edges
represent the flow of international mergers and acquisitions between
them. After elaborating the IMAN, it estimates the fitness of Borgatti
and Everett (2000) core-periphery model to the network. Furthermore, it
analyzes the fitness evolution between 1999 and 2013 and identifies
core, semi-periphery and periphery countries. Results confirm the
existence of a sharp and persistent coreperiphery structure in the
relations between countries. The core is made of only 15 nations that
are almost completely interconnected among them and responsible for most
of investments in transnational corporations. 41 semi-peripheral
countries are relatively well connected while achieving about one fourth
of investments. Finally, the remaining 155 nations in the periphery are
mostly disconnected among them and only receive marginal investments
from the core and semi-periphery nations. These results reveal that the
ownership and control of the means of production at the global level is
driven by polarized and unequal relationships between countries.
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