Milky Way global survey of star clusters. VII.

The dynamical evolution model is based on previous N-body simulations. The obtained tidal masses have been added to the MWSC catalogue. A general CMF (GCMF), built for all cluster ages around the Sun, has a bell-like shape and extends over four decades in mass.

The high-mass slope found for tidal mass logm_t_/M}_{sun}_>=2.3 is equal to 1.14+/-0.07. The CMFs for different age groups show the same high-mass slopes, while the low-mass slope is nearly flat for the youngest sub-sample (clusters younger than 20Myr) and about -0.7 for the others. The inner and outer sub-samples covering Galactocentric radii R=4.2-8.1kpc and 8.9-13.5kpc, respectively, are consistent with the GCMF, once the exponential decline of the Galactic disc density is taken into account.

The model suggests star formation with low efficiency of 15-20%, where only 10% of stars remain bound in a cluster after gas expulsion and subsequent violent relaxation. The cluster formation rate required to reproduce the observed distributions in age and mass is about 0.4M_{sun}_/pc^2^/Gyr. The obtained high-mass slope of the GCMF for the wide neighbourhood of the Sun is similar to slopes determined earlier in nearby galaxies for more luminous clusters with logm/M_{sun}_>3.8.

The MWSC catalogue supports models with a low star-formation efficiency, where 90% of stars are lost quickly after gas expulsion. The obtained cluster formation rate corresponds to open clusters' contribution to the stellar content of the thin disc at the level of 30%.