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 the reconfiguration of European financial geographies and the role of stock exchange mergers in this process. There has been, however, no systematic attempt to date to analyse such changes. This paper proposes a specific conceptual framework to explore these issues. It uses a product-based analysis to examine, in the context of recent stock exchange mergers, the factors affecting the competitiveness of a financial centre. It argues that it is important to understand three intertwined influences – product complementarities, the nature of local epistemic communities, and regulation – and their contingent effects on change. This is exemplified by a tentative application of the framework to the case of Amsterdam in order to better understand its recent decline in competitiveness as a European financial centre

Introduction : Financial geographies — the credit crisis as an opportunity to catch economic geography’s next boat?

The story of the financial turmoil that swept the world in 2007 and 2008 has proven to be geographical to the bone. In this introduction to the special issue on ‘financial geographies’ we express concerns that the financial crisis and all it has showcased is going to be economic geography's ‘next missed boat’. We derive three problematics from the crisis—productivism, epochal thinking and rationality—and discuss the extent financial geography is positioned to address them. The second aim of the introduction is to present an overview of the papers in this special issue and the ways in which they take up the issues raised in this introduction

Comment on Gordon Clark: The false necessities of state retreat

None.