Competitive Alternatives - KPMG's Guide to International Business Location Costs 2012

Competitive Alternatives provides an independent cost comparison of business locations in more than 130 cities in 14 countries around the world, including 27 of the largest metropolitan cities in the United States.

The 2012 study is an expansion and update of previous KPMG publications and measures a wide range of costs when assessing competitiveness for business, including: taxes, real estate, utilities, infrastructure, labor and transportation.

The study also compares data on a variety of non-cost competitiveness factors, including labor availability and skills, innovation, economic conditions, regulatory environment and personal quality of life.

Read the full Competitive Alternatives report.

News releases for both large US cities and mid-sized U.S. cities can be found here.

Some key highlights for U.S. cities included in the 2012 report: 

• Cincinnati's low costs for facility leasing, transportation and property taxes contributed significantly to its ranking as the least-costly location to do business in the United States
• Atlanta was the second most cost-competitive location in the large-cities category, followed by Orlando, Tampa and Dallas-Fort Worth. Other locations that performed well were Baltimore, St. Louis and Cleveland
• The most expensive places to do business in the large-cities category were San Francisco andNew York