The power of corporations
2008-04-29 · Original WordPress address
Recently I ran regressions of wages and labor force composition on the density of Walmarts in States. Walmart --- the largest private employer in the U.S. with sales of over $350B or about 3% of GDP --- has had zero effect on wages and labor force composition in aggregate. This was much to my disappointment because zero results don't get published.
This (non-)result suggests that the largest corporation on the planet has little effect on the macro economy. How does one square this fact with the narrative of the omnipotently evil multinational corporation? Does it make sense to compare GDPs to sales (or profits) of corporations? If not, what is a good way to compare the power of corporations to the power of nations?