Do regional-development agencies play a key role in attracting investors?
BRITAIN did pretty well at getting foreign direct investment last year, on new figures from Ernst & Young, a professional-services firm. The number of FDI projects (defined as investment in physical assets, and excluding sectors such as retail and leisure, and extracting natural resources) in Europe as a whole fell by 11% in 2009 from 2008, and the number of jobs created dropped by 16%. In Britain, however—the favourite European destination for foreign investment—projects and new employment stayed virtually the same. America was the biggest investor, and business and financial services, along with software, were the biggest investment sectors. Did Britain’s regional-development agencies have anything to do with this success? RDAs have always occupied an uneasy place in political and business affections. Their websites trumpet news of inward-investment triumphs and numbers of jobs created. But it is hard to be sure that the projects might not have materialised anyway, and the outfits ca
