The Locational Choice And Comparative Analysis Of The Corporate Headquarters Of China And The United States

Since twenty-first Century,with the continuous improvement of social and economic level,there has been an upsurge called headquarters economy in China and throughout the world.Based on the theory of location as the theoretical basis from regional economics,this paper takes the headquarters of the Fortune 500 company in China and the United States as the research object and conducts an intensive research concerning the process of locational selection of large and medium-sized enterprise group headquarters under this trend.The theoretical part includes classical location theory,central periphery theory,industrial cluster theory and product life cycle theory.A set of evaluation index system of the sample cities is constructed as follows: economic basis,information infrastructure,environment foundation,industrial structure,public transportation,research capacities,financial services and the degree of openness.In this framework,this paper makes a multi-dimensional evaluation of the target cities where gathered by Chinese and American business headquarters,including 104 cities in China and 39 states and Washington D.C.in the United States.After the empirical regression,we will figure out the key elements influencing the process of locational choice between the managers and make a comparative discussion of the differences in corporate preferences between the two countries.Finally,we put forward some suggestions about further development of the headquarters economy in China.