The interlocking world city network model and other office location approaches (OLAs) have become the most widely used empirical models of the world city network (WCN). Despite numerous methodological improvements, they continue to rely on a legacy of using data on office locations of firms to indirectly estimate intercity business flows. To advance the dialogue about how to improve on existing empirical models of the WCN, we examine the content, construct and structural validity of OLAs. We analyze the link between the theoretical construct of intercity business flows and network projections obtained from office location data and uncover evidence that calls into question the validity of OLAs as empirical models of the WCN. In the spirit of no deconstruction without reconstruction, we then develop an alternative empirical model of the WCN, based on directly observable relational ties among APS firms, which are formed through co-production of complex services. We call this the inter-organizational project approach (IOPA). We argue for IOPA's construct validity as an empirical model of the WCN and offer empirical evidence for its structural validity. We demonstrate it using a global sample of 161,114 investment bank syndicates in the 2000-2015 period.

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Globalisation, financialisation and technology have fuelled competition among international financial centres, with investment banks playing an important part in the process. This study introduces novel data on cross-border investment banking revenues in 2000-14 by city, and investigates their determinants. It shows that international financial centres emerge from cities that are already leading domestic financial centres, with large, deep, flexible and open labour markets, and a large and internationalised non-financial sector, in countries with strong rule of law and contract enforcement. Stock market returns, corporate and finance-specific taxation, English as the official language, and legal family of origin do not seem to matter.

Investment bank capitalism might have foundered during the global financial crisis in 2008, but what has happened to investment banks? Our analysis reveals that core investment banking activities have experienced a significant contraction, accompanied by diminished institutional and geographical concentration. Large banks have experienced the largest falls in revenue and Asian banks have capitalised on the growth of their local capital markets. With direct access to the largest market in the world, US banks remain dominant globally, but their market shares have declined. Our results highlight the variegated nature of change underway in the global financial system, and its implications for geo-politics and geo-economics.

Financial centres are central to contemporary capitalism, but research on their development has been impeded by methodological challenges related to data availability. This paper offers a new typology of financial centre activity. Based on the nationality of parent companies of financial service providers operating in a centre, and the nationalities of their customers, we distinguish between domestic, export, import and platform activities. Second, we compile a unique dataset of investment banking deals worldwide, which allows us to apply the new typology and introduce the first ever ranking of top financial centres based on the actual investment banking activity conducted in these centres. Our findings confirm the dominance of New York and London as global financial centres, with New York focused on domestic activities, and London on export and platform activities. Our data also show that, overall, investment banking activity has fallen dramatically since 2007, with 60% of the decline concentrated in New York, and a further 30% in Zurich, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Edinburgh combined. As a result, the dominance of investment banking by New York and London has diminished, contributing to a trend that predates the crisis, explainable by the increasing shares of Asian centres, with Tokyo and Chinese cities in the lead.