ABSTRACT
The City, for its part, retreated into the British Empire, which enabled it to continue to play, within the framework of the sterling area, the role that it had previously played at world level. The increasing pressures on the dollar, because of the widening deficit of the US balance of payments, the attempts at propping it up, the eventual devaluation and suspension of convertibility, and the end of its role as the key currency of the international monetary system. Long-term analyses were indicating that the world's financial leadership was in the process of switching from New York to Tokyo, just as it had started to switch from London to New York at the beginning of the twentieth century. London's ranking was higher than that of Britain because of the Cities far greater level of internationalisation London actually ranked first for international financial activities, though it dropped to third place, behind New York and Tokyo, if national financial activities are included.
