ABSTRACT
One of the few points on which the Group of Eminent Persons appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to examine the problem of multinational corporations (MNC) agreed was the penury of "useful and reliable" information. Since the majority of the statistics dealing with the activities of the multinational corporations are mere estimates, very considerable discrepancies, which reflect the subjectivity of their authors, are commonplace. The multinationals merely eliminate the distortions caused by the discontinuity of political frontiers. A distinction should perhaps have been made between the MNC problem and that of exports of capital generally. As for direct investments themselves, except for settlers' undertakings which are only a marginal phenomenon today, the present trend towards widening the definition of the MNC makes any distinction regarding the status of the investor pointless. By a sort of communicating vessel process, the backward region drained off the surplus from the advanced region.
