Shard words before a fall?

Londoners are proud of the Shard, which will be Western Europe's tallest building when it is completed later this year - but a new report may force the capital to swallow its pride.

It finds an "unhealthy correlation" between the building of skyscrapers and subsequent financial crashes, identifying nearly 20 cases in the past 150 years where architectural exuberance has preceded an economic fall. The report by Barclays Capital cites nearly 20 famous examples around the world, ranging from the Empire State Building in New York to Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

Report author Andrew Lawrence said the pattern appears to hold in London. He cites the completion of Tower 42 in 1979, ahead of the early 1980s recession, of One Canada Square in Canary Wharf in 1991 amid another downturn and the Millennium Tower in 2009, in the midst of the current crisis as examples.

Lawrence concludes that with China and India currently building dozens of towers, it may be time to think twice about investing in emerging markets.