New research has found that a stable legal and economic framework and transparent business regulation make London the most important city in the world economy. Financial Times


A report on the top 50 centres of commerce, commissioned by MasterCard, put New York into second place, behind London, with Tokyo third and Chicago fourth. It confirms the findings of several other reports: that New York's dominance has been challenged by a falling share of financial business and complaints about heavy-handed regulation.

The index combines six measures of commercial power, such as as flows of finance, volumes of business and the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

London scored highly on financial flows, economic stability and the ease of doing business, although it performed poorly on information creation and flow, which measures the number of universities, researchers and MBAs, patent applications and scientific journal articles.

Africa’s only city in the top 50 was Johannesburg, ranked 47th, while Mumbai was India’s only representative at 45.