The 147 Corporations Controlling Most of the Global Economy

NewScientist reports on research by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston showing how

An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

and that

"In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network," says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

Though,

Yaneer Bar-Yam, head of the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), warns that the analysis assumes ownership equates to control, which is not always true. Most company shares are held by fund managers who may or may not control what the companies they part-own actually do. The impact of this on the system's behaviour, he says, requires more analysis.

This ties in -sort of- with the book by John Perkins, titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. Which explains (among other things) how USAID and the World Bank are used by the US to gain votes in the UN, and how that does not always end up being so popular.