A Refreshed Taxonomy to Monitor State Capitalism

Our previous taxonomy included a category called "Capital injection and equity stakes (including bailouts)." This category mixed direct government shareholdings with crisis-era bailouts, development bank investments, and various intermediated financing arrangements. Researchers attempting to track state ownership patterns found themselves working with a category that aggregated fundamentally different mechanisms.

The distinction matters analytically. When a government acquires voting shares in a semiconductor firm, it gains direct influence over corporate decisions. When a government capitalises a fund that then invests in semiconductor firms, the relationship is different: the state enables investment but an intermediary executes it. These mechanisms have different transparency characteristics, governance implications, and economic effects. Collapsing them into one category obscured these differences.

We have retired "Capital injection and equity stakes (including bailouts)" and created five new intervention types. Four fall under MAST chapter L (subsidies), and one under MAST chapter I (investment measures):

• Corporate control order (MAST I): The state does not acquire ownership but places a firm under direct government supervision or custodianship. This measure allows authorities to block management decisions, suspend executives, freeze asset transfers, and effectively neutralise shareholder rights; all without taking an equity position.
• Equity stake (MAST L): Direct government shareholding with voting rights and profit participation. The government appears on the company's shareholder register.
• Debt purchase (MAST L): Government acquisition of existing corporate bonds on primary or secondary markets. The government becomes a creditor to the firm.
• Financial investment support (MAST L): Government backing of intermediary funds that invest in operating companies. The government capitalises or guarantees the fund; the fund invests in firms. The government is not a direct investor in the operating company.
• Lending support (MAST L): Government financial backing to intermediaries that enables corporate credit access. This includes funding for loan origination, guarantees for intermediary lending, and support for intermediaries to issue loan guarantees.

We have also added the "intermediary" role category to capture the identity of financial agents involved in delivering support. This allows users to identify which development banks, investment funds, or guarantee facilities are channelling government-backed finance.

The reclassification supports two analytical distinctions that were previously difficult to make.

Direct versus intermediated support. Users can now separate interventions where governments take ownership positions (equity stakes, debt purchases) from those where governments enable intermediaries to deploy capital (financial investment support, lending support). This distinction is essential for research on state ownership, competitive neutrality, and transparency.

Equity-oriented versus debt-oriented intermediation. Financial investment support typically backs funds targeting early-stage or strategic sectors. Lending support typically backs credit facilities serving incumbent firms or sectors facing financing constraints. The new taxonomy captures whether intermediated support flows through equity or debt channels.

For API subscribers, firm-level data is now queryable where transactions involve specific companies, enabling granular competitive intelligence and investment due diligence.

We examined 16,697 interventions and reclassified 5,061. The reclassification covers interventions from November 2008 onwards, drawing from the following original GTA intervention types: capital injection and equity stake (including bailout), state loan, loan guarantee, and state aid, unspecified.

Of the reclassified interventions, 6% required additional taxonomic adjustments affecting parameters such as economic sector, eligible firms, or the creation of additional intervention records. We deleted 143 interventions that no longer met GTA reporting criteria upon review.

To ensure accuracy at scale, we combined AI-assisted classification with expert validation. The model assessed all in-scope interventions and assigned confidence levels to its recommendations. The monitoring team reviewed these assessments. Experts and model agreed on 89% of interventions; the remaining 11% were reclassified based on expert judgement.

Of the 1,399 interventions previously classified as "Capital injection and equity stakes (including bailouts)":

• 50% are now classified as equity stakes
• 26% as financial investment support
• 10% as state loans
• 6% as grants
• 4% as debt purchases
• The remainder is distributed across loan guarantees, lending support, and other categories

We also harmonised how the GTA captures governmental financial intermediation, which was previously scattered across state loans, loan guarantees, and state aid, unspecified. The database now contains 2,468 interventions classified as either financial investment support or lending support, with lending support representing approximately 79% of recorded financial intermediation instruments.

Additionally, we reclassified 1,190 legacy database entries to ensure consistency. Of these, 55% now fall under financial grant and 42% under debt purchase, with the remainder distributed across MAST chapters L and P.

These changes are effective as of 4 February 2026.

Full documentation for the new taxonomy, including detailed definitions and coding guidance, is available in the updated GTA Handbook.

An analytical brief examining what these data reveal about global patterns in government financial support is available at https://globaltradealert.org/blog/government-is-back-in-business.