A note on the location choice of multinational banks: The case of Japanese financial institutions

There are many studies investigating the location choice of foreign direct investment (FDI) of US banks. Nigh et al, (Journal of international Business Studies 17 (1986) 59-72) find that the choice does not depend on local banking opportunity, This paper examines what factors affect the location choice of Japanese multinational financial institutions, Our results are consistent with previous studies analyzing US banks in that the FDI of the manufacturing industry is an important determinant of the location choice of Japanese financial institutions. However, our results differ from Nigh et al., in that Japanese financial institutions choose their locations at least partially based on the local banking opportunity in the host countries. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.