Foreign Bank Entry into Emerging Economies: An Empirical Assessment of the Determinants and Risks Predicated on German FDI Data

The paper investigates the factors crucial in the locational decisions of multinational German banks in selected emerging markets of central and eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia between 1994 and 2001. Emphasis is placed on testing variables of macroeconomic and financial sector risk along with measures of bank-client integration and host country market characteristics. Results indicate that FDI by non-banks exerted a strong pull effect on banking FDI flows, as did highly developed financial markets and a low country risk. No particularly meaningful effects are found in the sample for per capita GDP or trade linkages. A strong case can be made for a variable taken from the "early warning indicators" literature which measures the backing of short-term banking deposits by international currency reserves. In almost all regressions, this financial crisis variable turns out be highly negatively correlated with FDI flows. Disaggregation of the sample by region illustrates that the factors which are at work differ between the continents. Comparing pre- and post-Asian-crisis time periods, it is found that both variables of country riskiness gain significance in the later sub-sample, with the result being especially pronounced for the measure of financial vulnerability.