This online paper can be cited or briefly quoted in accordance with the usual academic conventions. It can be downloaded for your personal use. It must not be published elsewhere without my explicit permission. If you cite it please use the following form: Kevin R. Cox and Alan R. Townsend (2005) “The English Politics of Local Economic Development and the American Model” Regional Studies. 39:4, 541-553. INSTITUTIONS AND MEDIATING INWARD INVESTMENT IN ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES By Kevin R. Cox Department of Geography The Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210-1361, USA cox.13@ohio-state.edu and Alan R. Townsend International Centre for Regional Regeneration and Development Studies, Wolfson Research Institute, Durham University Stockton-on-Tees TS17 6BH, UK Alan.Townsend@durham.ac.uk ABSTRACT In England, a new institutional structure for local and regional development has recently emerged involving some decentralization of responsibility. A major focus has been stimulating and mediating inward investment. The new scale division of labor resembles to some degree that which has long been apparent in the US. Similar tensions are observable, but there remain considerable differences and an examination of them facilitates understanding of the limits and possibilities inherent in the England case. In the American case, institutions tend to be much more metropolitan in form, the public-private 1