According to the conventional wisdom, an increase in monopoly power should also lead to fewer and larger multinational corporations, but, as reported by the United Nations, the number of multinational corporations tripled from 1988 to 1997. The United Nations' World Investment Report 1999 cited two recent studies. The second study, conducted by the United Nations, reached the same conclusion as the first for countries in Asia, but it offered some disputable evidence of a possible negative impact on Latin America. Further, government-sponsored cartels are not concerned about the poor. In the 1970s, opec's price distortions were a major source not only of world recession but also of the increased external debt and poverty of developing countries.
Free markets protect the poor from the prolonged abuses of cartels.
Concerns about multinational corporation infringements on national sovereignty lack substance. From 1991 to 1998, according to the United Nations, there were 895 new foreign direct investment regulations enacted by more than sixty countries. The jobs created abroad also tend to pay far more than the domestic employers do. Evidence supplied by the World Bank and United Nations strongly suggests that multinational corporations are a key factor in the large improvement in welfare that has occurred in developing countries over the last forty years. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where the presence of multinational corporations is negligible, severe poverty rates persist and show little sign of improvement.