We would like to thank Olivier Blanchard for having kindly welcomed the new challenge set out by our little textbook: “Anti Blanchard Macroeconomics”, by Emiliano Brancaccio with Andrea Califano (Edward Elgar Publishing, UK and US)
Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 6 March 2018
by Emiliano Brancaccio, Raffaele Giammetti, Milena Lopreite, Michelangelo Puliga
Neither the existence of a global tendency toward the centralization of capital as theorized by Marx nor the possible links between economic crisis and capital centralization have been verified by empirical studies. Using techniques of complex network analysis applied to the Thomson Reuters Eikon database we introduce a definition of centralization as network control and present a first study of its global evolution from 2001 to 2016. We find that the global network control is highly centralized: the fraction of the top holders cumulatively holding the 80% of the global economic value of the companies examined does never exceed 2%. Furthermore, by inspecting the temporal dynamics of the phenomenon we observe a relevant increase in the centralization of capital: this trend assumes a more regular and general character since the financial crisis started in 2007, with a growth of more than 20%.
JEL classification: B5, D85, F23, G34
Keywords: Network analysis, Capital centralization, Concentration, Financial crisis, Top holders holding, Ownership and control structures, Marx, Laws of tendency
Link to the article
Institute for New Economic Thinking, 20 March 2018
The renowned economist reflects on the rise of neoclassical economics, the post-2008 surge of interest in non-mainstream, heterodox thought, and how young economists can remain independent in the face of biased evaluation systems
Interview by Emiliano Brancaccio and Nadia Garbellini
Economics is one of the fields where the contradictions and limitations of the academic research evaluation system in Italy is most clearly felt. This still fragile science—which in order to evolve requires openness, pluralism and appraisals of different approaches—is today conditioned in its development by academic evaluation and selection criteria, which are largely arbitrary and modelled on a single paradigm subject to increasing epistemological, theoretical, and empirical objections. Luigi Pasinetti, one of the world’s leading exponents of critical economic thought, expresses his views on the subject in the following interview by Emiliano Brancaccio and Nadia Garbellini.
Link to the interview
