Do a Handful of Companies Really Run the World Economy?

The Global Super-Entity Ownership ties among transnational corporations show a cluster of 147 companies can exert enormous power over global corporate networks. Most are financial institutions. S. Vitali, J.B. Glattfelder, and S. Battiston

These guys do... Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston systems theorists at ETH Zurich delved into 43,060 trans-national corporations and studied share ownerships and searched for commonalities that tie all these companies together. They determined that a base core of 1,318 companies have intertwined ownerships containing ties to two or more other companies. Researchers dubbed this an "economic super-entity. This network forms a “giant bow-tie structure.” The team worked using techniques normally designed to study complex systems in nature to create a model of which companies controlled other companies. Roughly three quarters of the ownership remains in the hands of the core itself. 

To some, this could be skewed to show that only a handful of companies really do run the world economy. The idea that these super entities possibly have to ability to steer the economy any way they see fit is very troubling indeed. Definitely some food for thought.
-Blogging4Bullion

Resources: New Scientist