The highest level of decision-makers or policymakers performs quinary activities. Their importance in the structure of advanced economies far outweighs their numbers. Often referred to as ‘gold collar’ professions, they represent another subdivision of the tertiary sector representing special and highly paid skills of senior business executives, government officials, research scientists, financial and legal consultants, etc. Sassen covered specifically New York, London, and Tokyo in her book, but there are many more global cities than this. Quinary activities are services that focus on the creation, re-arrangement and interpretation of new and existing ideas data interpretation and the use and evaluation of new technologies. In this world then, a global city is a significant production point of specialized financial and producer services that make the globalized economy run. They are not tied to resources, affected by the environment, or necessarily localised by market. Like some of the tertiary functions, quaternary activities can also be outsourced. Personnel working in office buildings, elementary schools and university classrooms, hospitals and doctors’ offices, theatres, accounting and brokerage firms all belong to this category of services. There has been a very high growth in demand for and consumption of information-based services from mutual fund managers to tax consultants, software developers and statisticians. The primary sector of the economy extracts or harvests products from the earth such as raw materials and basic foods. Quaternary activities are specialized tertiary activities in the ‘Knowledge Sector’ which demands a separate classification.
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