http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.5728v1
The network of global corporate control
Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston
28 July 2011
I've only reached p. 5 (of 36) but this is intriguing.
I once asked my father-in-law (who was the CFO of a small liberal arts
college) what would happen if a corporation bought all of its own
shares. "Couldn't happen", was his reply. He wouldn't even contemplate
the notion as an hypothetical scenario.
Okay, okay, I get it. The shareholders are likely to say, "Wait! If
you're making piles of money, enough to offer to buy back my shares,
just give me a dividend or do something cool that increases share
value." But do the execs/managers/players *really* have to put up
with that in today's world?
My original thought was that management would love to wield the power
of the corporation without the restraint of shareholder scrutiny or
demands.
Well, now, this paper suggests that there's now an ownership/control
topology among TNCs such that it appears (to a financial dumbo such as I)
to achieve something close to the functional equivalent of a
corporation buying itself.
The actual paper is only 8 pp., the rest labeled as "supporting
information" but the latter is really the explanation of what they're
getting at.
The prose is a little turgid and has errors, both perhaps due to
English not being the first language of the author. But it's the
first thing I happen to have seen that takes an approach to the
subject that I might, with some effort, understand. Digraphs,
reticula, flow charts and the like make more sense to me than the more
typically seen statistical or financial tables.
FWIW,
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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