Analysing the changing landscape of European financial centres: the role of financial products and the case of Amsterdam

The turn of the twenty-first century saw the re-emergence of debates about thereconfiguration of European financial geographies and the role of stockexchange mergers in this process. There has been, however, no systematicattempt to date to analyse such changes. This paper proposes a specificconceptual framework to explore these issues. It uses a product-based analysisto examine, in the context of recent stock exchange mergers, the factorsaffecting the competitiveness of a financial centre. It argues that it is importantto understand three intertwined influences – product complementarities, thenature of local epistemic communities, and regulation – and their contingenteffects on change. This is exemplified by a tentative application of theframework to the case of Amsterdam in order to better understand its recentdecline in competitiveness as a European financial centre.