In a column about something else entirely, Brad DeLong says in passing:
The Economic Policy Institute reports a poll showing that Americans overwhelmingly believe that the economic policies of the past
year have greatly enriched the bankers of Midtown Manhattan and London’s Canary Wharf (they really aren’t concentrated on Wall Street or in the City of London anymore).
True, but “Wall Street” and “the City” are very handy labels for referring to the financial industry in, respectively, the United States and Great Britain. Anyone who writes about finance should therefore be eager to keep them around. In fact, I think we need more of them for other countries.
But do we have them? Are the bankers of Frankfurt, Zurich, and Tokyo concentrated in some part of the city that’s since become a synonym for, respectively, the German, Swiss, and Japanese financial industry? If so, what are they? If not, why not? I remember wanting such a word for the Japanese financial sector once, but I couldn’t find it. But I also couldn’t figure out whether that was because it doesn’t exist, or because I just didn’t know where to look. Can any jet setting financiers help me out here?
