Government Takeovers of U.S. Foreign Affiliates
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A study which did provide quite complete descriptive information on individual nationalizations was an earlier study by J. Frederick Truitt.3 But the flurry of takeovers of recent years was not covered in it. The present survey includes the instances of the recent past. This study examines the number of takeovers, and certain characteristics of each, rather than the value of such takeovers, not as a matter of choice but of necessity. Systematic data on the value of U.S. property taken over by foreign governments do not exist. By focusing on the number of takeovers, there exists an obvious possibility of bias and misrepresentation. Yet the evidence suggests that the takeovers covered in this inventory were in almost all cases substantial in terms of dollar value. And although of questionable reliability, some speculations on values are provided in the final section of the paper. The six characteristics of the takeovers of the U.S. firms by host countries considered below are: (1) the time of the action; (2) the industry of the nationalized affiliate; (3) the geographic region of the nationalizing country; (4) the form of the takeover; i.e., whether an outright nationalization, forced sale, or other form; (5) the selectivity of the takeover, i.e., whether a nationalization of the entire industry, only the foreign firms, or only a few firms; and (6) the political-economic circumstances surrounding the action, i.e., whether associated with ideological changes in government, with particular policies on natural resources, or other reasons. Other characteristics are obviously of interest, but limitations in the information available have confined us to these six. It should be noted that the definition of takeover used here is a broad one, including not only actions which would popularly be termed expropriations (takeovers of foreign firms with due process and some compensation), but also confiscations, nationalizations (involving both foreign and locally-owned firms), and forced sales. These distinctions will be made explicit below.
DEFINITIONSOF The very nature of the information available makes any type of categorization of individual THECHARACTER- takeovers somewhat subjective as it is dependent upon personal judgment. This clearly ISTICS necessitates that the conclusions based on resulting data be treated with appropriate care. Conversely, the broad categories established here should be considered as only reflecting the general tendencies shown by the individual data. It is thought, however, that the limited generalizations made are justified.
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TimePeriods The takeovers were grouped into four post-war subperiods: before 1962; 1962-66; 1967-71; and 1972-73. These subperiods were chosen solely to reflect trends in the data, and soas to provide more complete information about changes in the recent past. There is little doubt that the quality of coverage of
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