Indice
The vast international trade that is dominated by group companies calls for statistical insights on which the most important international organisations with various interests in the development of economic globalisation are working: IMF, Eurostat, World Trade Organisation (WTO), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), International Labour Organisation (ILO), World Bank, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)[i].
The effort made by these bodies to create a statistical system that allows one to understand the impact that the organisational structure of multinationals has on the global economy and on the policies of individual countries is therefore still being tested. At present, it has several shortcomings due to the non-standardisation of data from different databases, the lack of detailed information, and the need to analyse other aspects of the phenomenon which are included in new indicators[ii].
The methodological basis for the statistical reporting of FDI is that provided by the IMF in the Balance of Payments and International Investment Position Manual. Until recently, it had reached its sixth edition (BPM6), which has now been replaced by the latest version (BPM7). The update was produced in cooperation with other international bodies, including the ECB and Eurostat. It is in line with the System of National Accounts (SNA 2008), the European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 2010), as well as the fourth edition of the OECD’s benchmark definition of foreign investment (BD4)[iii].
The OECD provides a database (AMNE) containing data on trade with Foreign Affiliates Statistics (FATS) based on several variables, i.e. sector of activity, production, value added workforce, research and development and exports[iv].
International exchanges between affiliates represent a sub-set of FDI, as the latter provide more general information with respect to the phenomenon of intra-group trade—namely, the monetary value of foreign investment flows and their scale.
It has been pointed out[v] that one of the limitations of this data is that it is not necessarily the case that the foreign counterparty company surveyed is the immediate beneficiary of the investment. A typical example is the case where money flows occasionally through countries offering tax benefits. FDIs cannot therefore provide detailed qualitative and quantitative information on financial and business relations between companies belonging to the same corporate group.
The statistical collection of data and information therefore needs to be more specialised with respect to exchange and economic and financial relations between intra-group companies.
In spite of these limitations, UNCTAD paints a fairly explanatory picture of the enormous importance of multinationals and exchanges between affiliated companies in the world economy[vi]. Since 1990, global FDIs have grown exponentially, achieving USD 23 trillion in 2012[vii]. Compared to the previous year, in 2015, global FDIs increased by 38 per cent to USD 1.76 trillion, the highest level since the global financial crisis.
The US, accounting for about a quarter of global inflows in 2015, remains the largest source and recipient of FDIs. The European Union (EU), Japan, Canada and Switzerland together hold around 90 per cent of the foreign direct investment stakes in the US, while the EU and Canada are the main geographical regions receiving US FDIs[viii].
Statistics show that part of the growth of FDIs was due to large-scale corporate reorganisations involving major shifts in the balance of payments but little change in real terms. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) totalling USD 721 billion were performed, compared to USD 432 billion in 2014; this was the main factor behind the global revival. The value of Greenfield investments continued to be very high at USD 766 billion[ix].
Several empirical studies show that foreign affiliates account for an increasing share of total exports of intermediate inputs originating from multinational enterprises, and that, in most cases, these exports consist of intra-group transactions[x]. It is estimated that more than 30 per cent of international trade is carried out by affiliates of multinational firms – intra-firm trade -, namely, one third of global exports[xi].
Recent IMF statistics show that, in 2023, FDI stocks increased to reach 41 trillion US dollars[xii].
Until 1990, sales of foreign affiliates and exports to ‘independent’ foreign suppliers were almost equal. After 1990, firms started to export predominantly to foreign affiliates, and within a few years this type of exchange has become one of the most important—if not the most important—channels of international trade [xiii].
Many activities in the Global Value Chain (or Global Supply Chain) are conducted by ‘parent companies’ and their affiliates. Approximately 43 per cent of total US trade relates to exchanges that take place within the same intra-firm group. US multinationals account for only 1 per cent of the total number of firms operating in the United States, and since 1990 they have contributed one-third of US GDP growth and almost half of US labour productivity growth[xiv].
Historically, US ‘parent’ affiliated companies have generated a larger share of added value than their affiliates.
In 2014, US resident ‘parent’ companies generated 71.9 per cent of the added value of all multinationals operating in the US, up from 69.4 per cent in 2009[xv]. In the same year, it was found that 52.4 per cent of US exports were made by ‘parent’ companies to affiliates and that 41.3 per cent of US imports involved imports of goods from foreign affiliates to US ‘parent’ companies[xvi].
The regional distribution of exports to foreign affiliates shows that Europe is the main destination of the trade flow, with 27.7 per cent, followed by Canada with 27.2 per cent, the Asia-Pacific (23.5 per cent), and Latin America and others in the Western Hemisphere (20.5 per cent). About half of the exports are to the Netherlands (17.9 per cent), Switzerland (17.2 per cent), and the United Kingdom (16.9 per cent). Over two-fifths of US exports to foreign affiliates in the Asia-Pacific were shipped to Singapore (25.1 per cent) and China (20.1 per cent). In Latin America and other parts of the Western Hemisphere, more than two-thirds of exports to foreign affiliates were destined for the Mexican market (67.8 per cent)[xvii].
A significant share of US-EU trade concerns exchanges made between companies of the same multi-national group[xviii]. US affiliates operating in Europe contribute around 13 per cent of EU GDP (with a turnover of USD 2.1 trillion), while EU affiliates in the US account for 11 per cent of US GDP (with a turnover of USD 1.6 trillion). In 2002, trade between resident affiliates on both sides of the Atlantic accounted for 47 per cent (USD 172 billion) of total EU-US trade in goods, a 50 per cent increase (USD 307 billion) since 2012. It was also noted that intra-firm exports accounted for 32 per cent of total US exports to Europe, a figure that remained relatively stable over the decade 2002-2012. Intra-firm imports, on the other hand, accounted for 62 per cent of total US imports from the EU. Almost half of the added value generated by US foreign affiliates in Europe was concentrated in three countries: the UK, Germany and Ireland.
Ireland is by far the country whose economy mostly depends on foreign affiliates of multinational companies. They provide around 80 per cent of added value in the manufacturing sector and 40 per cent of added value in the services sector[xix].
With specific regard to Europe, the majority of foreign-controlled firms are resident in one of the EU countries[xx]. In some countries, however, there is a high proportion of foreign-controlled firms outside the EU. Luxembourg is one of them, with a share of around 80 per cent.
A recent 2025 report by the IMF Statistics Department[xxi] places particular emphasis on the fact that intra-group transactions—i.e., those between affiliated companies—and transactions between independent entities cannot be treated as equivalent. This is because, in the former case, such transactions often result in inflated or deflated exchange values and prices, which are explicitly referred to as “distorted” and therefore essentially unreliable for statistical recording and monitoring purposes (pars. 3.113, 3.114, 3.115, 3.226, 8.18, A15.21).
For debt analysis purposes as well, intercompany liabilities are identified separately, as they present different risk and “vulnerability” implications compared to liabilities between unrelated parties (par. 6.26). The report also highlights the significance of debts between related companies and of transactions among them, particularly in connection with received financing (pars. 7.20, 7.21, and 7.22).
In the subsequent sections, the report attempts to quantify the phenomenon of transactions between affiliated companies, given their growing relevance in shaping the nature and volume of cross-border trade, even going so far as to define a controlled entity as a “quasi-corporation” (par. 10.33).
As will be discussed further below, the phenomenon of the “single-contractor apparent economy” is corroborated by efforts to quantify intra-group exchanges of intermediate inputs, with particular attention to supply contracts between parent and subsidiary companies, and thus to the related phenomenon of outsourcing (par. 10.56 ff.). (In un recente report (2025) del dipartimento di Statistica del FMI viene posta particolare attenzione al fatto che gli scambi infragruppo – ovvero tra società affiliate – e gli scambi tra società indipendenti non possono essere considerati uguali, poiché nel primo caso le transazioni producono spesso valori di scambio e prezzi alterati sia al rialzo che al ribasso, definendoli esplicitamente come “distorti” e dunque sostanzialmente inaffidabili ai fini del rilevamento e del monitoraggio statistico (par. 3.113, 3.114, 3.115, 3.226, 8.18, A15.21). Anche ai fini dell’analisi del debito, quelli interaziendali vengono identificati separatamente poiché presentano implicazioni di rischio e “vulnerabilità” differenti rispetto ai debiti tra parti non correlate (par. 6.26). il Report mostra anche l’importanza dei debiti tra società collegate e degli interscambi tra le stesse legate proprio ai finanziamenti ricevuti (par. 7.20, 7.21 e 7.22). Nelle successive pagine si tenta di dare una dimensione al fenomeno degli scambi tra società affiliate, vista l’importanza che questo assume sull’identità e sulla quantità degli scambi transfrontalieri, spingendosi sino a definire una società controlla come una “quasi-corporation” (par. 10.33). Come si vedrà meglio in seguito, il fenomeno della “economia apparente a contraente unico” trova conferma nei tentativi di dare una dimensione agli scambi di inputs intermedi infragruppo ponendo l’accento sui contratti di fornitura tra controllante e controllata, dunque sul correlato fenomeno dell’outsourcing (par. 10.56 ss.).
The OECD is also closely examining the phenomenon, seeking to provide the methodological foundations for an accurate statistical representation of FDI, in light of the growing importance of intra-group transactions at the international level — that is, international trade relations — as well as credit and debt relationships among affiliated companies[xxii].
[i] See Timothy J. Sturgeon, Global Value Chains and Economic Globalization. Towards a New Measurement Framework, Report to Eurostat, Industrial Performance Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, May 2013.
[ii] On the importance of statistics in understanding economic phenomena and the need for further analysis and insights, see Working Party on International Trade in Goods and Trade in Services Statistics, STD/CSSP/WPTGS/M(2016).
[iii] Source: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/39118/6581752/Communication-changes-FDI.pdf.
[iv] OECD website.
[v] Alessandro Borin and Riccardo Cristadoro, Gli investimenti diretti esteri e le multinazionali [Foreign direct investment and multinationals], ‘Bank of Italy Occasional Papers’, no. 243, October 2014.
[vi] See UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2016: Investor Nationality: Policy Challenges, New York-Geneva, 2016.
[vii] See UNCTAD, Global Value Chains: Investment and Trade for Development, New York-Geneva, 2013. For less recent studies on the phenomenon, see Marcos Bonturi and Kiichiro Fukasaku, Globalisation and intra-firm trade: an empirical note, OECD, ‘Economic Studies’, no. 20, Spring, 1993
[viii] See M. Ayhan Kose, Csilla Lakatos, Franziska Ohnsorge and Marc Stocker, The Global Role of the U.S. Economy Linkages – Policies and Spillovers, in Policy Research Working Paper 7962, World Bank Group, February 2017.
[ix] See UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2016, cit.
[x] See Frances Ruane, FDI Affiliates, Fragmentation and intra-firm trade, 5 September 2014, p. 3.
[xi] See UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2011: Non Equity Modes of International Production and Development, New York-Geneva, 2011. Also see, Unctad paper TAD/TC(2016)6/REV1.
[xii] See Integrated Balance of Payment and Internationale Position Manual, Seventh Edition (BPM7), Statistic Department IMF, in www.imf.org.
[xiii] See Sandra Stojadinović Jovanović, Interdependence of International Trade Investment Flows in the Post Crisis Period, in ‘Ekonomika’, vol. 16, no. 2, 2016.
[xiv] See Kose, Lakatos, Ohnsorge and Stocker, The Global Role of the U.S. Economy Linkages. Policies and Spillovers, cit.
[xv] See Sarah P. Scott, Activities of U.S. Multinational Enterprises in the United States and Abroad – Preliminary Results From the 2014 Benchmark Survey, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), December 2016, p. 4.
[xvi] Ivi, p. 3.
[xvii] Ivi, p. 11.
[xviii] For the following data, see Csilla Lakatos and Tani Fukui, EU-US Economic Linkages: The Role of Multinationals and Intra-Firm Trade, European Commission, Issue Paper 2-2013.
[xix] Heike Joebges, Crisis Recovery in a Country with a high Presence of Foreign Owned Companies. The Case of Ireland, in Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Working Paper, no. 175, January 2017.
[xx] Foreign affiliates statistics – FATS, Eurostat, in http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Main_Page, 2014.
[xxi] See Integrated Balance of Payments and International Position Manual, Seventh Edition (BPM7), Statistics Department, IMF, available at www.imf.org.
[xxii] OECD (2025), OECD Benchmark Definition of Foreign Direct Investment (Fifth Edition), OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/7f05c0a3-en.