Book Description

It is often suggested that Japan's role as a capital exporting country has given its financial institutions the advantage of recycling a huge current account surplus. As a direct result of this competitive advantage and the favourable macro-economic conditions prevailing in Japan in the 1980's, Japan's long-term capital outflows increased substantially. During this period Japan's external assets rose from USdollar; 10.9 billion at the end of 1981 to USdollar; 610 billion at the end of 1993.The book focuses on Japan's expanding role in international financial markets during the above period, and examines in detail the presence of Japanese financial institutions in Europe. It furthermore describes the organizational aspects of the financial institutions, reviews their market strategies and performances and provides detailed and factual information (in the Japanese, German and English languages) about their domestic and international competitive position. A regression model of the Japanese banks' expansion in Europe and two case studies of the Japanese financial presence in Europe reinforce the findings of the study.The main objective of the book is to explain the emergence of Japanese banks and securities companies as financial multinationals, and juxtapose this with the changes in their domestic and international environments.The subject matter may be grouped with the research work in the field of international banking, international financial markets, and service multinationals. The chapter on Japanese securities companies in Europe extends the analysis of investment banking firms as multinationals. A full chapter on the competitive position of Japanese financial institutions offers new dimensions for the research on international competitiveness of service multinationals.