How much of the world economy is state‐owned? Analysis based on the 2005–20 Fortune Global 500 lists

Abstract

This paper analyzes the share of state‐owned enterprises on the Fortune Global 500 lists from 2005 to 2020. The purpose is to answer two research questions—what is the share of SOEs among the world's largest companies, and is this share increasing over the years? Regarding studies of large sets of companies, the novelty of this article is the method in which SOEs were identified—based on the criterion of actual corporate control of the state and not the threshold of state ownership. The results show that the share of SOEs in the group of the world's largest companies is higher than indicated in previous similar studies, and this value has increased significantly over the last 15 years. In 2005, there were 64 SOEs on the list; in 2020, there were 141 (with the highest number—142—in 2015). In this period, the share of SOEs in revenues doubled (to almost 30%), in assets more than tripled and the total number of employees from SOEs from the list more than doubled. However, these increases were almost solely due to the growth of the Chinese economy, which resulted in more Chinese SOEs being included on the list.

State-Owned Enterprises and Endogenous Growth

“…The IG producer maximizes the operating profit as in ( 10) and the price for IG i is (11). As IGs are bought to the same extent x i = x, we can present (28) as…”

“…Szarzec et al (2021) showed that SOEs had at least a 20% share in the group of large enterprises in 19 out of 30 European countries in 2007-16. Kwiatkowski et al (2022) found 141 SOEs among the 500 largest enterprises worldwide in 2020. However, SOEs are most often analyzed at the microeconomic level and there is little research into their impact on economic growth, particularly from the theoretical perspective.…”

The influence of state ownership on environmental proactivity: An institutional perspective of international firms

“…The recent findings of the IMF (2020) show that the share of SOEs among the world's 2000 largest firms doubled to 20% over the last two decades, driven by SOEs in emerging markets—their assets being worth US$45 trillion, equivalent to half of the global GDP. As for the Fortune Global 500 list, the shares of SOEs in the group of the world's largest companies have increased from 64 SOEs in 2005 to 141 SOEs in 2020 (Kwiatkowski et al, 2023). In 19 out of 30 European countries during the period 2007 to 2016, SOEs held a minimum share of 20% in the majority of large enterprises (Szarzec et al, 2021).…”