Nicolas Véron

Europe's Share of Global Champions: FT Comment

This morning, the Financial Times published a comment piece by John Thornhill in which he refers to my analysis of FT Global 500 lists of the world's largest listed companies ranked by market value.

Indeed, there has been a striking shift in positions of the main economic regions in the past few years. Europe has maintained a stable and even mildly rising share of the aggregate value of FT Global 500 companies, while the share of the US has sharply decreased and the emerging markets have become too important to ignore. This is only partly due to exchange rate effects.

More Data on Corporate Demographics

Bruegel just published The Demographics of Global Corporate Champions, a new working paper and public dataset in which I look more closely at the birth dates of the world's 500 largest companies (based on the FT Global 500 ranking by market capitalisation, September 2007).

Among other things, this novel database shows strinking differences between corporate demographics in Europe and Japan, where large companies tend to be old, and the US, which retains a significant ability to give birth to a steady flow of "new giants". I had already mentioned these results, especially in a Policy Brief in January and a column in March. But this is the first comprehensive presentation of the underlying data.

Download BruegelWorkingPaper_Jul08.pdf to read the working paper from this website.

In French: Download OpinionEuropeenne_2008.pdf to read  an abridged version which was published in April 2008 in L'Opinion Européenne en 2008, a volume edited by Dominique Reynié and published by Lignes de Repères and the Robert Schuman Foundation.

Reforming the Governance of International Accounting Standard-Setting

Bruegel just published my comments on the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) Foundation's proposal to reform its governance arrangements, following a consultation meeting in which I participated in London on 19 June.

In my contribution I recommend more recognition of investors and other capital-markets users of financial information in the future governance framework, as well as a more meaningful public consultation process -- this governance reform may sound arcane but it will probably have a large impact on the future shape of international accounting standard-setting.

Download BruegelPolicyContribution_Jul08.pdf to read this piece.

High-Risk Summer

In today's column, I look back at two recent decisions, respectively by the UK FSA on short selling and by European Commissioner McCreevy on rating agencies. Both illustrate a risk that policymakers yield to short-term political pressures to the detriment of the their own credibility, with negative market effects. Public authorities must display leadership and nerve -- especially in turbulent times.

Download Tribune_080708.pdf to read the piece as originally published in French.