Corporate Concentration and Turnover in Global Industries,1960–2000

Abstract

Animating the debate over ‘globalization’ is the specter of ‘the power of the corporation.’ High-profile anti-trust cases and mega-mergers have heightened fears of the fulfillment of Marx's ‘law’ of the concentration of capital. But how concentrated and durable is global corporate ‘power?’ And do mega-mergers increase it? This article attempts to answer these questions by examining corporate concentration and turnover in 18 global industries over the last half of the 20th century. It finds monopoly-like positions by industry ‘number ones’ to have been rare and transitory, that most industry leaders achieved their positions through internal growth, and that most who ‘bought their way to the top’ did not stay there long. Four-firm industry concentration is also not especially high. The top four firms account for less than 60% of the total sales revenues of the top 12 firms in 13 of the 18 industries as of 2000. Following notable industry de-concentrations during the 1960s and ‘70s when European, then Japanese firms challenged American corporate hegemony, concentration was stable until the late 1990s when it increased in a few industries. Despite this surface stability, however, the identities of the top one and the top four firms often changed from decade to decade. Some global leadership positions have endured, but turnover occurs even at the very top. Turnover is higher among the ‘top four’ than among ‘number ones.’ The odds of displacement or disappearance increase even further among smaller companies. There seems little risk of ‘control’ of world industry by ‘the’ corporation, by a few corporations, or by a few American corporations.