ABSTRACT
Most multinational corporation (MNC) activities are located in the developed, not the developing world. This is so notwithstanding the proliferation of developing nations since World War II, and notwithstanding the location of natural resources and population growth in the Third World. Data gathered by the United Nations in 1972 indicate that in 1967 about three-quarters of the affiliates of MNCs headquartered in the developed nations operated in the developed world. MNC executives complain that leaders of developing countries take a different line on foreign investment for each audience, and policies toward the foreign investor become stakes in host country politics. Developing countries are more or less capable of exploiting the growing competition among MNCs, particularly as they come increasingly from different home countries. The most generalized suspicions of the MNCs are likely to exist in countries at the lower levels of economic development, especially those that have only recently become independent.
