Are there any performance differences in OS X apps based on location of install?

are there any differences from a performance perspective (not access control) when a OS X application is installed(stored) in /Applications dir in the local domain vs /Users/<username>/Applications dir in the user domain?

In general: No. The kernel and standard system libraries and frameworks do not make decisions which could affect performance conditionally upon a process binary's image or bundle path. The executed code remains the same and the instruction & data latency and bandwidth are also the same.

There are two cases I can think of when it may make a difference:

1. If /Applications and ~/Applications reside on two different volumes – and, particularly, if those volumes are on different physical disks, especially disks that have different performance characteristics. (E.g., if you leave /Applications on an internal SSD but move ~/Applications onto an external hard disk attached via USB 2.0, there can definitely be a noticeable slowdown at both launch and runtime for the latter.) You would have had to have intentionally set it up this way, so you'd know if this was the case.
2. If a particular application intentionally changes its behavior depending on its location. Most apps don't do this because they have no reason to, but it's certainly possible to write an app that does.