The Changing Geography of Global Corporate Power

全球企业权力的地理变化

Nicolas Véron

Originally published in French in La Tribune, 23 June 2008

原发表于法国《论坛报》， 2008年6月23日

 

The business world  has  for  decades  been  used  to seeing itself  through  the  prism  of  financial  centres,  defined as marketplaces which centralise the listing of the large companies in their respective orbit.  

数十年来，商业世界一直习惯于透过金融中心的棱镜观察自我，而且被定义为在其各自轨道上集中的一系列大型企业的市场。

 

But  this  framework  is  being  made  increasingly obsolete by financial integration, the internationalisation of  large  corporations,  and  competition  between  rival trading systems. 

然而，这一构架正日益被金融整合、大型公司国际化以及证券交易系统间的竞争所淘汰。

 

Major stock indices are becoming  more cosmopolitan.  France’s  CAC  40  includes  Dexia,  a  bank more  Belgian  than  French,  and  ArcelorMittal,  the  steel giant which no longer has much that is French about it. More  exotic  still,  the  FTSE  100  includes  two  Kazakh mining groups, ENRC and Kazakhmys. 

就连主要股票指数也变得更加世界性。法国CAC 40股价指数就包含了更具比利时味道的德克夏银行（Dexia），此外还有安赛乐米塔尔（ArcelorMittal）----这家钢铁巨头身上也没有什么与法国相关的东西了。更赋予异国情调的是英国FTSE 100指数还包含两大哈萨克矿业集团：欧亚自然资源集团公司（ENRC）和哈萨克斯坦铜业集团（Kazakhmys）。

 

Since  a  recent  European  directive  redefined  the organization  of  markets,  liquidity  has  been  migrating briskly towards alternative marketplaces. Euronext Paris

used to enjoy a near -monopoly on CAC 40 shares, but its share of trading volume dropped to 72% in January 2008 and to less than 54% by mid-April.

自欧盟指令就市场组织重新定义以来，流动性就开始快速地向世界其他市场进行转移。巴黎金融城（Euronext Paris）曾经几乎独占法国CAC 40 股指，但到2008年1月，其交易份额下跌至72%，并随即在4月中期跌至54%以下。

 

The notion of a ‘Paris listing’ (or indeed of a listing in any specific location)  is  becoming  increasingly  volatile and irrelevant, especially in the EU.

“巴黎上市”的概念（或者说是在任何一个特定地点上市的概念）变得越来越模糊和无关紧要。这一点在欧盟地区尤为明显。

 

Under  this  transformation,  finance  becomes concentrated in a small number of global centres, among them  New  York,  London,  Hong  Kong  and  Tokyo;  and

specialised  markets  capture  niche  activity,  such  as Boston, Luxemburg but also Paris for asset management; the Bay Area around San Francisco for venture capital;

and Chicago and Frankfurt for derivatives. 

于此变化之下，金融活动开始向为数不多的几个世界中心汇集，其中包括纽约、伦敦、香港和东京，还有那些利基市场，例如波士顿、卢森堡以及巴黎因其资产管理吸引众人；圣弗朗西斯科以风险投资出众，还有芝加哥和法兰克福因衍生产品令人瞩目。

 

The  gradual  fading  of  the  concept  of  the  national place  financière  also  means  that  the  geography  of economic decision-making becomes less correlated with the location of financial activity. At the same time, the global corporate pecking order is changed by the rise of emerging economies.

 

此外，国家“金融市场”这一概念的逐渐褪色，也意味着制定经济决策的地理位置，与金融活动本身所在之处的关联正逐渐变小。与此同时，随着新兴经济体的崛起，全球企业的融资啄序也为之而变。

 

 

The table below has been established on the basis of the  FT  Global  500  ranking  of  the  world’s  500  largest listed companies by market value as of 31 March 2008,

calculating the total value of the companies whose main decision-making centre is located in a given metropolitan area. Some interesting facts arise from the list of the Top 50 cities.

下面的图表是基于英国《金融时报》根据2008年3月市值发布的全球500强企业排行榜，而统计主要决策中心位于给定城市区域的公司市值。随之，一个颇有意思的现象呈现在全球50大城市的清单上。

 

The  business  world  now  presents  a  ‘multipolar’ balance  between  the  US,  Europe  and  the  rest  of  the world. Also within each region, the landscape is changing.  In the US, New York remains the nation’s – and the world’s – capital city for business; number two is the Bay Area, a magnet for technological innovation and internet

services, far ahead of traditional oil and manufacturing centres. 

如今的商业世界表现出欧美与世界其他数个地区之间的“多级”平衡。在每一区域，情况也正发生着变化。首先，在美国，纽约仍然是全美—乃至全球的—商业之都；位于第二的是旧金山湾区（the Bay Area），它对科技创新和网络服务颇具吸引力，因而远远的走在传统石油和制造中心的前面。

 

In Europe, Paris comes hard on the heels of London and even beats it in terms of the number of corporate headquarters – 31 versus 25. Third place goes to Madrid,

well ahead of big German centres such as the Ruhr and Munich. 

在欧洲，巴黎排在了伦敦之前，甚至在拥有公司总部数量方面以31对25击败了后者。位于第三位的是马德里，远在诸如鲁尔以及慕尼黑之类的德国中心的前面。

 

In  Asia,  Beijing is  now  way  in  front of  Tokyo  and Hong Kong, a sea change from as recently as a year or two ago. 

在亚洲，北京超过了东京和香港，这一翻天覆地的变化发生于仅仅最近的一两年之前。

 

By  contrast,  some  cities  which  might  have  been expected to head the pack because of their financial or political pre-eminence are relegated to the bottom of the

list, such as Boston or Washington DC, or even entirely absent,  such  as  Berlin,  Dubai,  Frankfurt,  Istanbul, Shanghai  or  Singapore.  Other,  less  conspicuous  cities actually come high up, such as St Paul-Minneapolis which is home to no less than eight companies in the global top 500.

相比之下，一些因金融或政治方面处于优先地位，而被认为会排列靠前的城市却落到了表格的底部，它们包括波士顿、华盛顿特区。还有一些这样的城市则完全榜上无名，比如柏林、迪拜、法兰克福、伊斯坦布尔、上海和新加坡。相反其它并非如此耀眼的城市却得以捷足先登，比如明尼阿波利斯-圣保罗已是全球500强企业中不少于8家企业的大本营。

 

 

This ranking should not be deemed the last word on economic  power.  The  correlation  between  the concentration  of  corporate  headquarters  and  local  or national wealth is complex and varies over time. The role of  headquarters  differs  from  one  company  to  another. And non-listed companies, some of them quite large, are obviously excluded from our calculation. 

诚然，这一排名不可被视为经济实力的最终定论。企业总部汇集之地与地方或国家财富之间的关系错综复杂，并且时时变化着。总部的角色因公司不同而不尽相同。此外，还有诸多非上市公司，它们之中有的规模强大，也未在我们统计数据之列。

 

 

But the list does shed revealing light on a number of issues. Not least for France, the very comfortable position of Paris in the global ranking implies that the French need not maintain the siege mentality which so often marks their national debates about globalisation. 

但是这一列表也足以说明一些问题，对法国同样重要。巴黎在世界城市排名中尚属舒适的位置，表明法国人还无需紧抓住受困心态不放，这种心态常常表现于在他们就全球化问题喋喋不休的争论之上。

 

Nicolas Véron is a research fellow at Bruegel.