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
