Infrastructure Connectivity: Infrastructure connectivity matters for regional competitiveness because firms rely upon global access, both physically and digitally, to participate in the efficiencies of global value chains.We measure talent through the share of population with tertiary education. Talent: Human capital-the stock of knowledge, skills, expertise, and capacities embedded in the labor force-is of critical importance to enhancing productivity, raising incomes, and driving economic growth.

We measure innovation through the scientific impact of research universities, patenting, and venture capital flows.

Innovation: A region’s innovative capacity has implications for its ability to develop and deploy commercial applications, start new businesses, and maintain industrial competitiveness in the face of disruptive technological change.

We measure tradable industries using data on greenfield foreign direct investment, which is inextricably bound up with traded industry clusters, and the productivity differential (measured as output per worker) between a metro area’s traded sector and that traded sector nationwide.

These industries are typically anchored by globally engaged firms, which have valuable spillovers for local economies.

Tradable Clusters: Tradable industries are a critical driver of prosperity and competitiveness.

To develop the typology, we utilized a series of statistical techniques to group metropolitan economies with their closest peers based on a set of 35 stock variables that measure metropolitan-level economic characteristics, industrial structure, and key competitiveness factors:

What factors make london a global city