THE DETERMINANTS OF OVERSEAS RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT BY JAPANESE FIRMS - AN EMPIRICAL-STUDY AT THE INDUSTRY AND COMPANY LEVELS

Japanese firms actively invested in overseas R&D during the second hal f of the 1980s. This paper investigates the determinants of their over seas R&D investment by using multiple sources of data (at the industry -area level, at the company level, and for the Japanese investment in the US) and multiple measures of R&D (R&D expenditure abroad, the numb er of overseas laboratories, and the number of overseas R&D subsidiari es). The results generally agree with the previous ones for American o r European multinationals by indicating, for instance, that the suppor t for local marketing is an important motivation. In addition, the sup port for local manufacturing appears an important motivation especiall y in Asia and the access to advanced technological knowledge and R&D r esources appears an important motivation in the US and Europe.