Keynote SCEW15: “Global Cities, a New Perspective and its Applications”

Presentation by Pankaj Ghemawat: Global Prof. of Management and Strategy | IESE & Stern School of Business

The presentation is based on the main data extracted from a study ranking cities according to their globalization, carried out by his work team.

First, it is necessary to establish the criteria on which this ranking is based. They are mainly economic indices, but not all of them are: number of multinationals operating, technology patents, employment in the creative industry, restaurant index per 1000 people, connectivity, number of international tourist arrivals, trade flows…

Two city rankings are established, one in terms of total volume of these indicators and the other in terms of percentage of the indicators in relation to the population of the metropolitan area of each city. The study is worldwide on data from 84 metropolitan areas, although it does not include some important cities such as Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Ranking by volume:

1. London
2. Singapore
3. Hong Kong
4. New York
5. Paris
6. Tokyo
7. Shenzhen
8. Peking
9. Seoul
10. Toronto

The main conclusion of this ranking is that the axis of globalization is shifting from West to East.

Ranking by percentage

1. Manama
2. Singapore
3. Hong Kong
4. Tallinn
5. Amsterdam
6. Geneva
7. Bangalore
8. Shenzhen
9. Dublin
10. Ho Chi Min

The change with respect to the other ranking is notorious. Particularly in the case of the city that leads it, Manama (capital of Bahrain), the causes are its oil exporting capacity and its need to communicate internationally for the same reason and for not having any city in its vicinity, being in a very small state without more urban concentrations.

Finally, he states that it is actually important to maintain a balance between local production and trade with international interactions.