Multinational corporations in world development

Abstract

Although quantitative information on multinational corporations leaves much to be desired and the wide disparities in methods of estimation among corporations, economic sectors and countries introduce a considerable margin of error in the interpretation of all the essential economic magnitudes, a few general characteristics are discernible, a central characteristic of multinational corporations is the predominance of large-size firms. Typically, the amount of annual sales runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. The very size of these corporations as compared with other economic entities, including the economies of many nations, suggests an important source of power. Moreover, there are strong indications that the multinational corporations have grown dramatically, especially during the last decade. As a result, both their absolute and relative size has expanded.