Akkermans Dirk H M
Department of Global Economics and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Groningen, the Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2017 Jun 27;12(6):e0179244. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0179244. eCollection 2017.
The paper aims at describing and explaining net profit flows per country for the period 1980-2009. Net profit flows result from Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) stock and profit repatriation: inward stock creating a profit outflow and outward FDI stock a profit inflow. Profit flows, especially 'normal' ones are not commonly researched.
According to world-system theory, countries are part of a system characterised by a core, semi-periphery and periphery, as shown by network analyses of trade relations. Network analyses based on ownership relations of TransNational Corporations (TNCs) show that the top 50 firms that control about 40% of the world economy are almost exclusively located in core countries. So, we may expect a hierarchy in net profit flows with core countries on top and the periphery at the bottom. FDI outflows from the core countries especially rose in the 1990s, so we may expect that the difference has grown in time.
A dataset on 'net profit flow' per country is developed. There are diverging developments in net profit flows since the 1980s, as expected: ever more positive for core countries, negative and ever lower for semi-peripheral and peripheral countries, in particular from the 1990s onwards. A fixed effects quantile regression using publicly available data confirms the prediction that peripheral countries share a unique characteristic: their outward investments do not have a positive influence on net profit flow as is the case with semi-peripheral and core countries. The most probable explanation is that peripheral outward investments are indirectly owned by firms located in core and semi-peripheral countries, so all peripheral profit inflows end up in those countries.
本文旨在描述和解释1980 - 2009年期间每个国家的净利润流动情况。净利润流动源于外国直接投资（FDI）存量和利润汇回：内向存量产生利润流出，外向FDI存量产生利润流入。利润流动，尤其是“正常”的利润流动，通常未得到充分研究。
根据世界体系理论，各国是一个以核心、半边缘和边缘为特征的体系的一部分，贸易关系的网络分析表明了这一点。基于跨国公司（TNCs）所有权关系的网络分析表明，控制着约40%世界经济的前50家公司几乎都位于核心国家。因此，我们可以预期净利润流动存在等级差异，核心国家处于顶端，边缘国家处于底端。20世纪90年代，核心国家的FDI流出尤其增加，所以我们可以预期这种差异会随着时间推移而扩大。
编制了一个关于每个国家“净利润流动”的数据集。自20世纪80年代以来，净利润流动出现了不同的发展趋势，正如预期的那样：核心国家的净利润流动越来越呈正向，半边缘和边缘国家则为负且越来越低，特别是从20世纪90年代起。使用公开数据进行的固定效应分位数回归证实了以下预测：边缘国家具有一个独特特征，即它们的对外投资对净利润流动没有像半边缘和核心国家那样产生积极影响。最可能的解释是，边缘国家的对外投资间接由位于核心和半边缘国家的公司持有，因此所有边缘国家的利润流入最终都流入了那些国家。
