Profit and Power : Arbitrage in the Era of the Multinational Corporation

Why are Multinational Corporations so powerful and elites so wealthy while still operating within nation-state rules?Profit and Power examines how firms engage in legal transgression, operating at the edges of legality to maximize profits.Offering a practical analysis of jurisdictional arbitrage, Ronen Palan exposes the hidden mechanisms behind corporate power in globalization and reveals how the rule-based transgressor elite emerged through strategic use of MNC structures.Tracing the origins to the late nineteenth century, Palan focuses on centrally-coordinated multi-corporate enterprises (CCMCEs) – networks of legally independent yet interconnected firms.He explores the gap between the legal entity and the corporate group, a loophole long exploited to arbitrage national regulations, including taxation.This is the first systematic study of jurisdictional arbitrage and its impact on states and society.By analysing corporate decision-making within fragmented regulatory environments, it unveils the systemic role of legal ambiguity in shaping modern capitalism and corporate dominance.