Communities in Italian corporate networks

The community structure of two real-world financial networks, namely the board network and the ownership network of the firms of the Italian Stock Exchange, is analyzed by means of the maximum modularity approach. The main result is that both networks exhibit a strong community structure and, moreover, that the two structures overlap significantly. This is due to a number of reasons, including the existence of pyramidal groups and directors serving in several boards. Overall, this means that the "small world" of listed companies is actually split into well identifiable "continents" (i.e., the communities). (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.