纽约依然是世界商业中心

    最近，在一个大型商业会议上（按规定我不能具名引用与会者的言论），我很惊讶地听到一位著名的首席执行官不经意间说到：“纽约仍然是世界的中心”。这位首席执行官并不是美国人（他来自英国），而且每次我见到他时，他要么准备去中国，要么刚从中国回来，所以当听到他说纽约市世界的中心之后，我就在想，他说得是否有道理呢？

    几天后，我接到了密歇根大学罗斯商学院（Ross School of Business）教授、知名领导力学者诺尔•迪奇的电话，他说将会带领15位全球MBA课程项目的学生到纽约市参访两天。这些学生大多是来自海外，大多数是亚洲人。“当我问他们有多少人曾经去过纽约时，只有两三个人举手，”他说。“我说‘什么？如果你连全球金融中心都没去过，怎么能理解商业世界？那我们就去纽约看看！’”

    这些人说得是否有道理呢？一般人当然认为，全球经济、知识、社交和文化的中心已经不可避免地向东方转移，而老迈的纽约却在这个过程中逐渐落伍。不过，依然有充分的证据证明，纽约的中心地位无可撼动，原因如下：

    - 纽约可以说依然是全球顶级的金融中心。在安然（Enron）和世通公司（WorldCom）爆出丑闻之后，萨班斯-奥克斯利法案（Sarbanes-Oxley）和其他一系列严厉的监管措施相继出台，令许多公司转投其他资本市场，特别是伦敦。但是如今，伦敦和欧盟也开始针对上市公司施行大量的监管法规，其中还包括限制银行家分红的提案，结果让纽约再次充满吸引力。

    - 毫无疑问，纽约还是全球的媒体中心。全球十大传媒公司中的五家都位于纽约，分别是哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）、新闻集团（News Corp）、时代华纳（Time Warner）、21世纪福克斯（21st Century Fox）以及维亚康姆集团（Viacom）。除纽约外，全球没有一座城市拥有超过一家“全球十大”传媒公司。

    当一座城市中云集了全球资本和媒体产业的总部时，或许它就真的是全球的中心。因此，恭喜纽约！自二战结束后的68年来，它一直头顶着“全球中心”的桂冠。但问题是，这顶桂冠还能保持多久？我对此没有把握。前面提到的那位著名的首席执行官将纽约称为全球中心的时候，他正身处新加坡。全球经济中心东移的趋势虽充满波折，但却不会停止。（财富中文网）

    译者：唐昕昕

    At a big business conference recently -- where the rules forbade my quoting participants by name -- I was surprised to hear a famous CEO refer in passing to "New York City, which is still the center of the world." The CEO isn't American (he's English), and whenever I see him he's always just coming from or going to China. And he thinks New York is the center of the world. I wondered, Could he be right?

    A few days later I got a call from Noel Tichy, the well-known leadership expert and professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, to say he was bringing 15 global MBA students -- all of them from outside the U.S., most of them Asian -- to the city for two days. "I asked how many of them had been to New York, and only two or three of them raised their hands," he explained. "I said, 'Come on. How can you understand global business if you've never been to the world's financial center? We're going!'"

    So are these guys right? The conventional view is of course that the global centers of gravity -- economic, intellectual, social, cultural -- are shifting unstoppably east, and little old New York is receding to the middle of the pack. Yet a case can still be made for New York's primacy, as follows:

    -It is arguably still the preeminent financial center. Its claim was in danger after the scandals of the Enron/WorldCom era prompted Sarbanes-Oxley and other heavy-handed regulations, which drove many companies to capital markets elsewhere, especially London. But now London and the EU have heaped mountains of regulation onto firms, including proposed limits on bankers' bonuses, and New York looks a lot more alluring once again.

    -It is unquestionably the global media capital. Of the world's 10 biggest media companies, five -- CBS (CBS), News Corp. (NWSA), Time Warner (TWX), 21st Century Fox (FOX), and Viacom (VIA) -- are based in New York. No other city has more than one.

    Money and media -- when a city is world headquarters for those two sectors of today's economy, maybe it really is the center of the world. So all hail New York! It has held the title for, let's say, 68 years (since the end of World War II). But for how much longer? Five years? I wouldn't bet on it. The famous CEO who called New York the center of the world made his remark in Singapore. That eastward trend may surge and pause, but it isn't stopping.