Earlier this week, I was flipping through the latest issue of Monocle, the new magazine from Wallpaper* creatorTyler Brule. This cover story in this month’s issue is a ranking of the top 25 cities in the world. Being a devotee of rankings, I read it eagerly. The obvious answer is money – good rankings mean more donations and bad rankings mean less donations. But this is incomplete at best: inside the US, the top institutions in US News would likely have got the big donations anyway; outside the US, where philanthropy is less developed, rankings hardly make a difference. Enjoy the weekend.