Counting Fortune 500 Companies in Brazil

 The lack of development in two of the other poorest countries of the sample, India and the Philippines is like so obvious when you compare the figures - they go from the bottom right in Figure 2.2 to the top left in Figure 2.3. It's like, whoa! Anecdotal AF, but like, both of these economies are killing it in service-based industries. It's low-key a sign that their economic institutions are evolving in a post-developmental state vibe. Egypt, Indonesia, and Morocco are lowkey lit cuz they're flexin' in the top left of figure 2.3 but chillin' in the middle of figure 2.2, which lowkey hints at a "enforced" mixed market economy. OMG, like those three economies are totally diff from Turkey and Brazil, which are known to have more solid democratic roots. So, it's like suggesting that Turkey and Brazil might be MMEs with institutions that are more negotiated than enforced. Lit, right?

The resulting scatter plot is lowkey like the Hall & Soskice findings of different market vibes.

Markets that are more lit AF lie to the bottom left and those that are less coordinated lie to the top right. Yo, the deets on GDP per capita (aka how developed a place is) and the % of banks that are owned by the state (aka how centralized the economy is), all up in table 2.2, gonna give you the lowdown on each country's situation for the scatter plot results in Figure 2.3. Ok so like, when you look at Figures 2.2 and 2.3 and also table 2.2, you can totally say that informality is way higher when the big economic labor rules don't match what the little economic people want (like the companies and workers), and informality is way lower when the big economic labor rules do match what the little economic people want. The Czech Republic and South Korea, like, flex CME vibes in Figure 2.2 and their institutional coherence is hella boosted in Figure 2.3. On the flip side, we got South Africa and Colombia, fam. China and Thailand, which seemed hella coordinated in Figure 2.2 are totally caught in the middle in Figure 2.3, The clustering of markets ain't as basic as Hall & Soskice's plot of advanced economies, but there's still a vibe that's noticeable. Economies with mad coordination be chillin' in the bottom left of the coordinate plane, fam. Korea, like, totally flexin' its export game with a lit manufacturing model and a boss activist developmental state, could lowkey be the anchor to the plot, you know, chillin' in the bottom left hand corner. 

A bunch of other EMs, where the state still has mad influence over the economy, make up the next "band" of pretty coordinated economies. 

Turkey, Morocco, and Egypt are like, total examples of economies where developmental coordination (or activist states) are, like, a major vibe in the organization of the market. Moving to the opposite end of the plot, states with more chill forms of market organization appear on the relatively lit ends of the spectrum (e.g. South Africa, Chile, and Colombia). Also, like, some EMs totally dip from the old-school CME-LME vibes. These states could be like, totally representative of either MMEs or transitional developmental states that have like, liberalised in a piecemeal way, you know? patrn. To like, totally get what's up with each economy, you gotta do some country-specific analysis to figure out if it's all about the government getting involved or if things are just staying the same. Looking specifically at case countries Brazil and India, the scatter plot lowkey answers some questions while introducing new ones, ya know? Brazil's like, in this weird in-between position that's like, it has, like, mixed market vibes, you know? Brazil is like, totes on the right side of markets where we might expect coordination, like Korea and China, but it's not really comparable to the more liberal markets of South Africa, Chile, and India which have like, super strong equity markets compared to debt capital markets. Brazil's labor coordination is like, so meh, it's stuck in the middle, you know? It's like torn between collectivised and non-collectivised labor vibes. India, like, doesn't really vibe with a liberal or coordinated categorization, ya know? India's cap markets are hella liberal but its labor market seems to be stuck in stasis with some meh changes to unemployment. 

The vibes of the Indian market are totally different from the vibes of the Brazilian market, you know?

Figure 2.3 be flexin' a second scatter plot used by Hall & Soskice in an EM context. The OG scatter plot uses gini coefficients on the x-axis and full-time equivalent employment on the y-axis. VoC be like, gini coefficients gonna be lower in coordinated economies cuz of that sick cooperation that boosts productivity, while in liberal models of capitalism where competition rules, they gonna be higher (Hall and Gingerich 2009; Hall and Soskice 2001). Similarly, VoC theory suggests that coordinated market economies will have lower levels of full-time employment cuz working hours are shorter for a greater proportion of the population (ibid). I also use the gini coefficient for the x-axis measure, fam. A lack of data makes it hella hard to figure out a normalised rate of full-time employment, so I just peep the percentage of non-agricultural workers in the informal economy instead. Informality of the labour market will be, like, how much labour actually follows the rules set by labour market institutions, ya know? While lowkey informality may not indicate a hella liberal or coordinated labour market, highkey informality will indicate mad inefficiency between labour market structures and demand. Ok, so like, the level of formality or informality can kinda help us figure out how developed and together things are (because more informality means less development and/or things not being together).