The discipline of comparative political economy (CPE) relies heavily on aggregate, country-level economic indicators. However, the practices of multinational corporations have increasingly undermined this approach to measurement. The problem of indicator drift is well documented by a growing critical literature and calls for systematic methodological attention in CPE. We present the case for a rocky but ultimately rewarding middle road between indicator fatalism and indicator faith. We illustrate our argument by examining two important cases—Sweden’s recent export success and the financialization of non-financial corporations in France. A careful parsing of the data suggests corrections to common characterizations of the two cases. Swedish exports have been reshaped by intragroup trade among foreign subsidiaries of domestic corporations. The growth of financial assets held by French firms is attributable to the growth of foreign direct investment and to cumulative revaluation effects, while what remains of financialization is concentrated among the very largest firms. Based on these findings, we propose a methodological routine that parses data by zooming in on the qualitative specifics of countries, sectors, and firms, while using all available options for disaggregation.

中文翻译：

---

坚实的基础：跨国公司的统计足迹是政治经济学的一个问题

比较政治经济学（CPE）学科在很大程度上依赖于总体的国家级经济指标。然而，跨国公司的做法越来越削弱了这种衡量方法。越来越多的批判性文献很好地记录了指标漂移的问题，并呼吁在 CPE 中进行系统的方法学关注。我们提出了在指标宿命论和指标信仰之间建立一条崎岖但最终有益的中间道路的案例。我们通过考察两个重要案例来说明我们的论点——瑞典最近的出口成功和法国非金融公司的金融化。对数据的仔细分析表明对这两种情况的共同特征进行了更正。瑞典的出口因国内公司的外国子公司之间的集团内贸易而改变。法国公司持有的金融资产的增长归因于外国直接投资的增长和累积的重估效应，而金融化的剩余部分则集中在最大的公司中。基于这些发现，我们提出了一种方法例程，通过放大国家、部门和公司的定性细节来解析数据，同时使用所有可用的分类选项。