GaWC Data Set 3

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Randstad Cities: Surrogate Measures of Relations, 1970-95

A.M. Beerda

The first data set consists of place mentions on the front page of the business section of the NRC Handelsblad. Holland’s leading newspaper for business news. The methodology used was the same as for Data Set 1: for each year 24 days were selected for examination, the first working day of each month plus the same day the following week. A total of 11,360 place references are recorded over 6 years. Further discussion of the measurement methodology can be found in GaWC Research Bulletin 1.

The second data set is derived from Het Financieele Dagblad which specialises in financial and economic news. Since this newspaper is available on CD-Rom , world city references are recorded for all pages in all issues of the paper in a given year. A total of 27,643 city references are recorded over two years.

There is analysis of both these data sets in A M Beerda (1998) Hierarchical tendencies amongst world cities: the orientation of the Randstad (MA thesis, Department of Social Geography, University of Amsterdam).

As per our data protocol, the following acknowledgement should accompany any public use of these data:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: These data were produced by A.M. Beerda and constitute Data Set 3 of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) Research Network (http://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/) publication of inter-city data.