City Mayors: World's richest cities by purchasing power

Zurich is home to the highest wage earners

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London is the most expensive city in the world
while Zurich is home to highest wage earners
A report by UBS

UBS survey 2008: Most expensive cities (Intro) | World's most expensive cities (table) | Richest cities by personal earnings (table) | Richest cities by purchasing power (table |
Mercer survey: Most expensive cities
EIU survey: Most expensive cities

RICHEST CITIES BY GDP
Introduction | 150 richest cities in 2005 | 150 richest cities in 2020 | Europe's richest cities |

The world's richest cities by purchasing power in 2008

Rank	Cities	Index New York = 100
1	Zurich	143.7
2	Geneva	135.8
3	Luxembourg	130.6
4	Berlin	128.6
5	Dublin	125.7
6	Frankfurt	124.3
7	Auckland	121.8
8	Los Angeles	119.8
9	Munich	119.5
10	Oslo	117.3
11	Helsinki	117.2
12	Sydney	116.5
13	Chicago	115.1
14	Brussels	114.3
15	Toronto	113.8
16	Copenhagen	111.3
17	Vienna	110.9
18	Montreal	109.7
19	Lyon	106.1
20	Nicosia	105.2
21	Barcelona	101.8
22	Miami	101.7
23	Stockholm	101.5
24	Amsterdam	101.3
25	NewYork	100.0
26	Madrid	97.4
27	Tokyo	94.5
28	London	91.5
29	Dubai	88.2
30	Paris	87.7
31	Milan	87.4
32	Athens	84.8
33	Johannesburg	77.9
34	Taipei	76.9
35	Rome	73.3
36	Manama	69.5
37	Kuala Lumpur	68.7
38	Seoul	66.6
39	Singapore	63.9
40	Prague	62.1
41	Lisbon	61.8
42	Ljubljana	60.4
43	Buenos Aires	57.1
44	Sao Paulo	55.3
45	Bratislava	49.7
46	Hong Kong	48.9
47	Tallinn	46.4
48	Lima	46.3
49	Moscow	44.4
50	Santiago de Chile	44.2
51	Vilnius	42.2
52	Budapest	41.3
53	Istanbul	40.8
54	Rio de Janeiro	39.3
55	Warsaw	39.1
56	Riga	38.4
57	Shanghai	35.8
58	Caracas	33.0
59	Bogotá	31.9
60	Beijing	29.7
61	Bucharest	29.6
62	Mexico City	28.5
63	Nairobi	28.0
64	Kiev	27.4
65	Bangkok	27.1
66	Sofia	25.4
67	Delhi	23.4
68	Manila	22.7
69	Mumbai	21.7
70	Jakarta	18.1

Note
When comparing purchasing power, it should be noted that local employees would buy a different set of items in Asian or African cities than their counterparts in Europe or North America. Imported products are particularly important, since as they are not much cheaper in emerging countries than they are in Western Europe and North America.
Methodology
Net hourly income divided by the cost of the entire basket of commodities incl. rent. 3 Listed according to the index value per net hourly wage.

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Comment
Most expensive
dollar-cities
Author: John Courtney Watt Submitted: 18 December 2007
Dear Editor: In compiling your list of most expensive cities worldwide, why do you insist on standardizing all costs relative to the American Dollar? This means that the cost of those cities only pertains to a person spending or earning American dollars. It does not address the costs relative to what a person typically earns in that city. Wouldn’t it be far more meaningful and informative if you took the median income earned in that particular city and compared it to costs incurred in that city such as food, transportation and housing (which itself should be the median price). For example, prices may be cheap in American dollars in Lagos, Nigeria thus giving it a low ranking in terms of costs. But what if a person living in Lagos is earning an income similar to the median income for that city and the prices for food transportation and the median house price/rent is high relative to that person’s wages then Lagos should score a higher rank in the table of expensive cities. Even within the same country wages are not the same for identical occupations in different cities. A corporate lawyer in New York will earn more than a corporate lawyer in Mobile, Alabama but how do their wages compare to costs within their respective cities? This is how cost of living in cities should be ranked, not to the baseline of the American dollar.

Editor's reply:
We agree with the above comment. Indeed in our introduction we said: “The problem with all three surveys is that they convert local prices into US dollars, which means that any changes are as much the result of currency fluctuations as of price inflation. For example according to all three surveys, the cost of living in European cities becomes more expensive if the dollar weakens even when local prices remain unchanged.” More

London is the most expensive city in the world while Zurich is home to highest wage earners A report by UBS

London is the most expensive city in the world
while Zurich is home to highest wage earners
A report by UBS