Economic power derives from the acquisition capacity of companies and countries

A country’s economic power can be gauged from: The capacity of its companies to make acquisitions in the rest of the world, which can be measured by the ir market capitalisation; The capacity of the country to make acquisitions in the rest of the world, which can be measured by the size of its net external assets. We then see that “powerful” countries from th e viewpoint of the ability to make acquisitions are: The United States, thanks to the huge market capitalisation of its technology companies; China and Japan, thanks to their huge external assets. Europe does not feature here at all .