Migration and the Rise of the United States: The Role of Old and New Diasporas

Differences in Pattern of Practice in Radiation Therapy for Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) Between Physicians in China and the United States (US)

THE LANDS WERE NOT EMPTY

Is the United States losing its position as the world's leading capital market? Recent statistics suggest that U.S. stock exchanges have been losing ground to foreign stock exchanges. The share of equity raised in global public markets represented by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) combined dropped from 28.8% in 2002 to 23.0% in 2009.1 1Comm. on Capital Markets Regulation, The Competitive Position of the U.S. Public Equity Market 7 (Dec. 4, 2007), available athttp://www.capmktsreg.org/pdfs/The_Competitive_Position_of_the_US_Public_Equity_Market.pdf; World Fed'n of Exch., 2009 Annual Report and Statistics 118, available athttp://www.world-exchanges.org/files/statistics/excel/WFE09%20final.pdf. Foreign delistings from the NYSE rose from 3.9% of all listed foreign companies in 1997 to 8.7% in 2009.2 2Comm. on Capital Markets Regulation, supra note 1, at 21; World Fed'n of Exch., supra note 1, at 104–05. The U.S. market capitalization decreased from 47.8% of the total global market capitalization in 1999 to 31.6% in 2009.3 3 Brown, Elizabeth F., The Tyranny of the Multitude Is a Multiplied Tyranny: Is the United States Financial Regulatory Structure Undermining U.S. Competitiveness?, 2 Brook. J. Corp. Fin. & Com. L. 369, 393– 94 (2008); World Fed'n of Exch., supra note 1, at 102. Market capitalization is as measured by the World Federation of Exchanges. Although in 2000, nine of the top ten initial public offerings (IPOs) in the world took place on U.S. exchanges, by 2005, only one of the twenty-five largest IPOs took place on a U.S. exchange.4 4Eric Pan, Why the World No Longer Puts Its Stock in Us 2–3 (Dec. 13, 2006) (Benjamin N. Cardozo Sch. of Law Jacob Burns Inst. for Advanced Legal Stud. Working Paper No. 176), available athttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=951705. In the first half of 2010, Asian exchanges dominated equity IPOs, with $22.6 billion raised on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and US$8.9 billion raised on the Shanghai Stock Exchange as opposed to $6.7 billion on the NYSE.5 5World Fed'n of Exch., Market Highlights For First Half-Year 2010, 8, available athttp://www.world-exchanges.org/files/file/stats%20and%20charts/July%202010%20WFE%20Market%Highlights.pdf. Commentators argue that one reason for the declining importance of the U.S. stock markets is the high level of regulation in the United States, especially after the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002.6 6Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-204, 116 Stat 745 (codified in scattered sections of 11, 15, 18, 28, and 29 U.S.C.) [hereinafter SOX]. Proponents of regulatory competition argue that the U.S. securities regulatory regime is too onerous and that companies should, instead, be allowed to choose which jurisdiction's securities law should apply to them. See, e.g., Choi, Stephen, Regulating Investors Not Issuers: A Market-Based Proposal, 88 Cal. L. Rev. 279 (2000); Choi, Stephen J. & Guzman, Andrew T., Portable Reciprocity: Rethinking the International Reach of Securities Regulation, 71 S. Cal. L. Rev. 903 (1998); Coffee, John C., Racing Towards the Top?: The Impact of Cross-Listings and Stock Market Competition on International Corporate Governance, 102 Colum. L. Rev. 1757 (2002); Palmiter, Alan R., Toward Disclosure Choice in Securities Offerings, 1999 Colum. Bus. L. Rev. 1; Romano, Roberta, Empowering Investors: A Market Approach to Securities Regulation, 107 Yale L.J. 2359 (1998). But there is also a concern that regulatory competition will lead to a race to the bottom. See Cox, James D., Choice of Law Rules for International Securities Transactions?, 66 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1179, 1186 (1998) (arguing the parties should not be able to avoid U.S. securities regulation in private securities transactions partly because there is a "need to protect investors from themselves"). For more on the regulatory competition debate, see Jackson, Howell E. & Pan, Eric J., Regulatory Competition in International Securities Markets: Evidence from Europe in 1999—Part I, 56 Bus. Law. 653, 658 (2001). In response to comment letters from many foreign private issuers requesting exemptions from some of the requirements of SOX, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did grant certain accommodations. In addition, in 2007, the SEC adopted a rule that allowed certain foreign private issuers to deregister and no longer be subject to U.S. securities regulation (the "deregistration rule"). With the recent global financial crisis, however, there have been renewed calls for more stringent U.S. regulation to prevent future financial crises.7 7 See, e.g., Coffee, John C. & Sale, Hillary A., Redesigning the SEC: Does the Treasury Have a Better Idea?, 95 Va. L. Rev. 707 (2009); Cunningham, Lawrence A. & Zaring, David, The Three or Four Approaches to Financial Regulation: A Cautionary Analysis Against Exuberance in Crisis Response, 78 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 39 (2009). The current crisis has rattled world markets, resulting in, among other events, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and some foreign governments needing International Monetary Fund packages.8 8 See, e.g., Davidoff, Steven M. & Zaring, David, Regulation by Deal: The Government's Response to the Financial Crisis, 61 Admin. L. Rev. 463 (2009); Okamoto, Karl S., After the Bailout: Regulating Systemic Moral Hazard, 57 UCLA L. Rev. 183 (2009). In a November 17, 2009 speech, SEC Commissioner Kathleen Casey stated that one of the lessons of the current financial crisis is that financial stability depends on investor confidence, which in turn depends on the transparency of financial statements.9 9Kathleen L. Casey, Comm'r, SEC, Lessons from the Financial Crisis for Financial Reporting, Standard Setting and Rule Making (Nov. 17, 2009), available athttp://www.sec.gov/news/speech/2009/spch111709klc.htm. As Congress had directed the SEC to review and study fair value accounting standards, the SEC delivered a report that included several recommendations on changes to fair value accounting standards to Congress which may result in new securities regulations.10 10 Id. In an increasingly global market, it is important for the United States to understand—before undertaking further reforms—the effects of increased securities regulation on the competitiveness of its stock markets. While U.S. securities laws should be reformed to decrease the risk of, and mitigate the effects of, future financial crises, absent a global harmonized regulatory regime, the United States should be careful to minimize the costs imposed by U.S. securities regulation on foreign private issuers.11 11"Foreign private issuer" is defined in Rule 405 promulgated under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-4 promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. 17 C.F.R. §§ 230.405, 240.3b-4 (2010). The United States benefits from foreign private issuers listing on domestic exchanges. And, U.S. investors find it easier to invest in shares of foreign companies if they are listed in the United States. In addition, foreign private issuers listed in the United States are subject to U.S. securities law, which provides better investor protection than many comparable foreign laws.12 12 See infra Part I.A. The experience of foreign private issuers accessing the U.S. market in the 2000s, especially after SOX and the deregistration rule, provides useful guidance regarding the effect of strengthened U.S. securities law on the attractiveness of U.S. markets for foreign private issuers. In this article, I examine the impact of post-SOX strengthening of U.S. securities law on the conduct of foreign private issuers. Part I provides some general background about foreign private issuers listing in the United States. It starts by discussing the benefits to the United States of having foreign private issuers list on U.S. exchanges. Part I also explores the costs and benefits of listing in the United States for foreign private issuers, especially in light of potential flowback13 13"Flowback" refers to American investors choosing to convert their American Depository Receipts (ADRs) into ordinary shares that are traded on non-U.S. stock markets. problems and the increasing availability of foreign exchanges as alternatives to the U.S. exchanges. Next, in Part II, I discuss the legal regime facing foreign private issuers, looking at the SEC's pre-SOX attempts to make the U.S. markets more attractive to them, at the controversy over the application of SOX to foreign private issuers, and at the SEC's post-SOX accommodations for foreign private issuers. Part II also reviews prior studies on SOX's effects on foreign private issuers. Part III then describes my three studies of foreign private issuers' behavior after SOX. The first study looks to see if, in a given region, the median relative U.S. trading volume14 14"Relative U.S. trading volume" refers to the trading volume the issuer obtains in the United States over the trading volume the issuer obtains in its home market. "Trading volume" is the number of shares of a security traded in a given market during a given day. For details on the calculation for relative U.S. trading volume, see infra Part III.A.1. of issuers that delist tends to be lower than the median relative U.S. trading volume of issuers that do not and to see which region's issuers are likely to find the United States to be a less important market. For each of the six regions15 15The six regions are East Asia, Europe, Latin America, Japan, Israel, and Australia. See infra Part III.A.1. I studied, issuers who remain listed on the U.S. exchanges as of January 31, 2010 tend to have lower relative U.S. trading volumes than those who voluntarily delisted16 16Issuers who voluntarily delisted are those who exited the U.S. market other than (i) those who were delisted by a U.S. exchange or (ii) those who were merged into another company. before January 31, 2010. Issuers from developed countries tend to have lower relative U.S. trading volumes. My second study finds that more issuers from regions with lower relative U.S. trading volume voluntarily delisted from the United States after the passage of SOX. My third study reviews SEC filings, cataloging the reasons foreign private issuers give for delisting. Many of the delisting issuers stated in press releases filed with the SEC that their low trading volumes in the United States did not justify the costs of being listed in the United States, especially after the additional regulatory burden imposed by SOX. Finally, I conclude by looking at the implications of the finding that issuers from developed regions with low relative U.S. trading volumes are more likely to delist as a result of increased securities regulation imposed by SOX. Because issuers from more developed countries are better investment prospects for U.S. investors, the SEC should consider granting these foreign issuers exemptions from any new U.S. securities regulations, to encourage them to continue listing in the United States. This part provides some general background, discussing the reasons the United States wants to encourage foreign private issuers to list on its exchanges. To maintain these benefits, the United States must ensure that a U.S. listing provides foreign private issuers with more benefits than costs, especially as foreign private issuers may face flowback problems, and foreign securities exchanges are increasingly becoming viable alternatives to U.S. exchanges. This part discusses the benefits and costs for foreign private issuers listing in the United States. Understanding both the benefits to the United States of having foreign issuers list on U.S. exchanges and what foreign private issuers perceive to be the benefits and costs of listing in the United States then assists in a determination of which foreign private issuers should be encouraged to list in the United States and how the U.S. securities regulations might be used to encourage these issuers to list. U.S. retail investors and the overall U.S. capital markets benefit from foreign private issuers listing in the United States. Investing in foreign companies provides investors with diversification, allowing them to select the optimal trade-off between risk and return.17 17U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comm'n on the Regulation of U.S. Capital Markets in the 21st Century, Report and Recommendations 39 (Mar. 2007), available athttp://library.uschamber.com/sites/default/files/reports/0703capmarkets_full.pdf [hereinafter U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comm'n Report]; Jackson, Howell E., A System of Selective Substitute Compliance, 48 Harv. Int'l L.J. 105, 111 (2007); Tafara, Ethiopis & Peterson, Robert J., A Blueprint for Cross-Border Access to U.S. Investors: A New International Framework, 48 Harv. Int'l L.J. 31, 41 (2007). Further, foreign companies are attractive to U.S. retail investors because many of the fastest-growing companies are foreign companies.18 18U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comm'n Report, supra note 17, at 39; Davidoff, Steven M., Regulating Listings in a Global Market, 86 N.C. L. Rev. 89, 115– 16 (2007); Jackson, supra note 17, at 111; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 48. U.S. retail investors can invest abroad but they face certain barriers. First, there are risks associated with investing in a foreign market.19 19Jackson, supra note 17, at 112; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 41–42. U.S. retail investors investing abroad may be unaware that they are investing in securities not subject to SEC oversight.20 20Jackson, supra note 17, at 112; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 42. Foreign countries may not have an effective legal enforcement regime.21 21Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 42. It is easier and less risky for U.S. retail investors to invest in foreign companies if they are listed in the United States.22 22U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comm'n Report, supra note 17, at 39; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 41. Listing in the United States subjects the foreign private issuer to U.S. securities law, which gives better investor protection than comparable law in many foreign jurisdictions.23 23Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 42; Doidge, Craig G. et al., Why Are Foreign Firms Listed in the U.S. Worth More?, 71 J. Fin. Econ. 205, 209 (2004). Second, there are transactional costs associated with investing abroad. To invest abroad, U.S. investors often either have to trade on a foreign exchange through a U.S.-registered broker, thereby having to go through two layers of intermediaries, or have to open an account with a foreign broker.24 24Jackson, supra note 17, at 111; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 47–48. U.S. retail investors may also lack adequate information about these foreign companies because foreign private issuers and foreign financial broker-dealers that do not comply with SEC registration and compliance requirements are not able to directly solicit U.S. retail investors.25 25U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comm'n Report, supra note 17, at 39; Jackson, supra note 17, at 111; Tafara & Peterson, supra note 17, at 48. Maintaining an environment friendly to foreign private issuers is important to the United States remaining the global financial center. Foreign private issuers constitute a significant portion of the IPOs and listings in the United States.26 26Brown, supra note 3, at 395. U.S. exchanges benefit from being able to obtain listing and trading fees, one of their major sources of revenue, from foreign private issuers that list on them.27 27Davidoff, supra note 18, at 127–28. For the schedule of fees paid to NYSE, see http://www.nyse.com/regulation/nyse/1147474807417.html (last visited Oct. 15, 2010). Regarding NASDAQ's fees, see NASDAQ, Listing Standards and Fees ( July 2010), available athttp://www.nasdaq.com/about/nasdaq_listing_req_fees.pdf. Keeping the U.S. markets attractive to foreign private issuers is important for maintaining the dominance of U.S. financial services sector, an important sector for the United States. One out of every nineteen Americans works in financial services and the industry represents eight percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.28 28Michael R. Bloomberg & Charles E. Schumer, Sustaining New York's and the US' Global Financial Services Leadership 10 ( Jan. 2007), available athttp://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/ny_report_final.pdf. The financial services industry is also one of the fastest-growing sectors in the U.S. economy.29 29 Id. Continued growth in this industry provides the United States with jobs and tax revenues.30 30 Id. at 9–10. To obtain such benefits, the United States needs to make sure that the benefits of listing in the United States for desirable foreign companies outweigh the costs. Foreign private issuers typically list in the United States for financial considerations such as increased liquidity, potentially lower cost of equity capital, a desire to increase their U.S. shareholder base, and ability to raise money from equity.31 31 See G. Andrew Karolyi, What Happens to Stocks That List Shares Abroad? A Survey of the Evidence and Its Managerial Implications 34–35 (Sept. 1996) (NYSE Working Paper No. 96-04), available athttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1612; Bancel, Franck & Mittoo, Usha R., European Managerial Perceptions of the Net Benefits of Foreign Stock Listings, 7 Eur. Fin. Mgmt. 213, 224– 25 (2001) (surveying European managers); Fanto, James A. & Karmel, Roberta S., A Report on the Attitudes of Foreign Companies Regarding a U.S. Listing, 3 Stan. J.L. Bus. & Fin. 51, 63– 66 (1997); Mittoo, Usha R., Managerial Perceptions of the Net Benefits of Foreign Listing: Canadian Evidence, 4 J. Int'l Fin. Mgmt & Acct. 40, 58 (1992) (surveying managers of Canadian companies cross-listed in the United States and the United Kingdom); Pagano, Marco et al., The Geography of Equity Listing: Why Do Companies List Abroad?, 57 J. Fin. 2651, 2685– 87 (2002) (looking at companies listed on ten major European exchanges and seeing who listed in the United States rather than in Europe). Listing in the United States also provides foreign private issuers with acquisition currency, prestige, and publicity.32 32 See Bancel & Mittoo, supra note 31, at 224–25; Fanto & Karmel, supra note 31, at 63–66. Some foreign private issuers list because all the companies in the relevant industry list in the United States.33 33 See Fanto & Karmel, supra note 31, at 52, 63–66. Another potential reason to list in the United States is that U.S. investors may be better able to identify which of the new, innovative firms are likely to succeed.34 34 See Asher Blass & Yishay Yafeh, Vagabond Shoes Longing to Stray: Why Foreign Firms List in the United States 16 (unpublished manuscript, on file with author), available athttp://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=248948. Previous studies have found that foreign private issuers' perceptions of the benefits of listing in the United States have a basis in reality. Studies have found that cross-listing in the United States leads to increased liquidity,35 35 See Foerster, Stephen R. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, International Listings of Stocks: The Case of Canada and the US, 24 J. Int'l Bus. Stud. 763, 773– 79 (1993) (looking at fifty-three Toronto Stock Exchange–listed stocks that listed on U.S. exchanges from 1981 to 1990); Karolyi, supra note 31, at decreased to domestic market See Foerster, Stephen R. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, The of Market and on Evidence from Foreign Stock Listing in the United States, J. Fin. (looking at firms from countries that listed in the United States between and Karolyi, supra note 31, at But see et al., of to Markets and Its on J. Int'l from between and that total risk decreased for firms but not for firms after the of the and increased See et al., International Cross-Listings and J. Fin. & Analysis (2002) from a study of a one before and one after a listed in the NYSE or Stock Exchange and from the number of a is in the and the Financial during the in that and increase after listing on the for foreign private issuers. to the cost of capital and increase share for foreign private issuers, both the and the of these effects are See & The Impact of an NYSE Listing on the Global of Stocks 2–3 (NYSE Working Paper No. foreign stocks listed on the NYSE between and and that stocks from developed markets on increase in home market value of trading after stocks from markets experience only a increase in home market et al., The Market Impact of The Case of 2 (1998) (looking at eight stocks listed in the United States or traded on markets between and and finding no of listing R. & Market and the of Capital in International Equity 35 J. Fin. & Analysis from foreign stocks that their first between and that cross-listing the cost of capital for foreign & Karolyi, supra note at that foreign stocks a significant during the before listing and also during the listing but that shares on during the after Karolyi, supra note 31, at 35 that share increased in the first after listing but that during the after listing The Market to International Evidence from J. Fin. Econ. from foreign stocks that their first between and that the of a listing were for firms that list on major U.S. & E., of Foreign Listings on U.S. J. Int'l Bus. Stud. effect from equity of foreign firms listed on the NYSE and the between and But see & J., Are to Rev. Fin. Stud. there an increase in there a for to several after listing and there of a effect on for firms While private for foreign private issuers tend to their home market on major U.S. public exchanges tend to the relevant et al., supra note at Foerster, Stephen R. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, The of Global Equity Offerings, 35 J. Fin. & Analysis Foreign private issuers obtain more of a if they from markets with lower accounting standards or lower of investor et al., supra note at & Karolyi, supra note at The increased may be because investors see a to list on an exchange with a environment as a of about its future 41 See C. & Disclosure and Listing on Foreign Stock J. & Fin. Listing in the United States may also increase the value of the shares because it the ability of a shareholder to private benefits from the See Doidge, Craig U.S. Cross-Listings and the Benefits of Evidence from J. Fin. Econ. that foreign firms that list in the United States and are subject to U.S. securities regulation tend to have lower than firms that do especially if these foreign firms are from countries with shareholder et al., supra note See also & Benefits of International J. Fin. (2004). and because it in non-U.S. firms and increased et al., and Does Listing in the United States a and Market 41 J. Acct. Foreign private issuers that list in the United States tend to their equity to and to into than do foreign companies not listed in the United Evidence from of U.S. The of Stock as an (Sept. (unpublished manuscript, on file with author), available & Cross-Listings and Evidence, 34 Fin. Mgmt. Firms from regions list in the United States for For European issuers, the reason to list in the United States is better by and the desire to obtain acquisition See Jackson, Howell E. & Pan, Eric J., Regulatory Competition in International Securities Markets: Evidence from Europe in 1999—Part II, 3 Va. L. & Bus. Rev. 224– 25 (2008); see also et al., supra note 31, at that of listing in the United States are the of and investors, than in Europe, and a The reasons firms list in the United States on their firms list to they can comply with the U.S. securities law requirements and to and is a less important because the market is M. Regulation of Issuers U.S. Public Equity Markets (2002) (unpublished manuscript, on file with on the other list to of increased and relative See at For issuers from other Asian the reason to U.S. markets is better from the liquidity, by 48 See Regulatory Competition in International Securities Markets: Evidence from in and (2002) (unpublished manuscript, on file with Regulatory Competition in International Capital Markets: Evidence from in 3 J.L. & Bus. 61 Asian issuers have found that they to go to the U.S. market for transactions over See at 13, Some Asian and firms list in the United States because they their home listing supra note at In addition, the has encouraged some to list in the United States to to the of their for to comply with U.S. securities listed must effective Id. at 21; supra note at Finally, listing in the United States firms to convert their to U.S. allowing them to obtain acquisition supra note at firms list in the United States to be subject to lower if they are listed on a U.S.

Re-emergence of canine influenza in the United States of America; a call for One Health approach; a letter to the editor

Historical trends and levels of nitrogen (N) budgets and emissions to air and water in the European Union and the United States are markedly different. Agro-environmental policy approaches also differ, with emphasis on voluntary or incentive-based schemes in the United States versus a more regulatory approach in the European Union. This paper explores the implications of these differences for attaining long-term policy targets for air and water quality. Nutrient surplus problems were more severe in the European Union than in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. The EU Nitrates and National Emission Ceilings directives contributed to decreases in fertilizer use, N surplus, and ammonia (NH) emissions, whereas in the United States they stabilized, although NH emissions are still increasing. These differences were analyzed using statistical data for 1900-2005 and the global IMAGE model. IMAGE could reproduce NH emissions and soil N surpluses at different scales (European Union and United States, country and state) and N loads in the Rhine and Mississippi. The regulation-driven changes during the past 25 yr in the European Union have reduced public concerns and have brought agricultural N loads to the aquatic environment closer to US levels. Despite differences in agro-environmental policies and agricultural structure (more N-fixing soybean and more spatially separated feed and livestock production in the United States than in the European Union), current N use efficiency in US and EU crop production is similar. IMAGE projections for the IAASTD-baseline scenario indicate that N loading to the environment in 2050 will be similar to current levels. In the United States, environmental N loads will remain substantially smaller than in the European Union, whereas agricultural production in 2050 in the United States will increase by 30% relative to 2005, as compared with an increase of 8% in the European Union. However, in the United States, even rigorous mitigation with maximum recycling of manure N and a 25% reduction in fertilizer use will not achieve the policy target to halve the N export to the Gulf of Mexico.

Civil War Settlers: Scandinavians, Citizenship, and American Empire, 1848–1870

Purpose: Based on the latest characteristics of the transmission mechanism of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, this article improves the classic dynamics model of the spread of infectious diseases, simulates and predicts the future trend of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States and various states. According to the computer program of COVID-19 dynamic contact network, the results provide effective control strategies for the future epidemic prevention work of the United States. Method: The SEIR model is improved by the latest effective reproduction number of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States, and an improved discrete SEIQDHR model is established for the spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States and various states. MATLAB software is used to perform least square fitting of key parameters, and the computer simulation process of COVID-19 dynamic contact network is solved dynamically. Results: The improved discrete SEIQDHR model is reliable in the analysis of the spread of infectious diseases. The model well simulates the current dynamic contact network of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States. The results of computer program show that mid-to-late November 2020 is the period with the largest number of new diagnoses before the end of the epidemic in the United States. In a long period of time in the future, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States and states will continue to show a clear upward trend. The cumulative number of confirmed cases of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States will reach its peak in early December 2021, which is about 37.11 million; the cumulative number of confirmed cases in Texas will reach its peak on March 15, 2021, about 3.21 million. Controlling the source of infection, blocking the route of transmission and strengthening the tracking and isolation are still effective measures to prevent and control the epidemic.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A strategic priority for the American Pediatric Surgical Association

The 49th parallel: Does geographic position affect longevity of patients with cystic fibrosis?

Dialysis Delivery in Canada and the United States: A View From the Trenches

Since 2014, viral images of Black people being killed at the hands of the police—Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, and many, many others—have convinced much of the public that the American criminal legal system is broken. In the summer of 2020, nationwide protests against police racism and violence in the wake of George Floyd’s murder were, according to some analysts, the largest social movement in the history of the United States.2 Activists and academics have demanded defunding the police and reallocating the funds to substitutes or alternatives.3 And others have called for abolishing the police altogether.4 It has become common knowledge that the police do not solve serious crime, they focus far too much on petty offenses, and they are far too heavy-handed and brutal in their treatment of Americans—especially poor, Black people. This is the so-called paradox of under-protection and over-policing that has characterized American law enforcement since emancipation.5The American criminal legal system is unjust and inefficient. But, as we argue in this essay, over-policing is not the problem. In fact, the American criminal legal system is characterized by an exceptional kind of under-policing, and a heavy reliance on long prison sentences, compared to other developed nations. In this country, roughly three people are incarcerated per police officer employed. The rest of the developed world strikes a diametrically opposite balance between these twin arms of the penal state, employing roughly three and a half times more police officers than the number of people they incarcerate. We argue that the United States has it backward. Justice and efficiency demand that we strike a balance between policing and incarceration more like that of the rest of the developed world. We call this the “First World Balance.”We defend this idea in much more detail in a forthcoming book titled What’s Wrong with Mass Incarceration. This essay offers a preliminary sketch of some of the arguments in the book. In the spirit of conversation and debate, in this essay we err deliberately on the side of comprehensiveness rather than argumentative rigor. One of us is a social scientist, and the other is a philosopher and legal scholar. Our primary goal for this research project, and especially in this essay, is not to convince readers that we are correct—but rather to encourage a more explicit discussion of the empirical and normative bases of some pressing debates about the American criminal legal system. Even if our answers prove unsound, we hope that the combination of empirical social science and analytic moral and political philosophy we contribute can help illuminate what alternative answers to those questions might have to look like to be sound. In fact, because much of this essay (and the underlying book project) strikes a pessimistic tone, we would be quite happy to be wrong about much of what we argue here.In the first part of this essay, we outline five comparative facts that contradict much of the prevailing way of thinking about what is distinctive about the American criminal legal system. In the second part, we draw out the normative implications of those facts and make the case for the First World Balance.In one sense, prisons and police are complements. It would be impossible to have many people in prison without the police, since, to put people in prison, the police usually have to apprehend and arrest them first. It would also be difficult to have police without prisons, since the threat of imprisonment is one of the typical sanctions wielded by police around the world. Given this, and given the exceptionally high incarceration rate in the United States, many people assume that the United States must also have an exceptionally high number of police officers.But that is not in fact the case. Figure 1 plots the police and incarceration rates of a sample of developed countries.6 The graph illustrates the chief fact that has animated the iterature on mass incarceration: America is a developed-world outlier in its use of incarceration. Yet it also illustrates the much less-well-known fact that America is not at all an outlier in its rate of policing. The United States has around 212 police officers for every 100,000 total residents, which ranks it in the forty-first percentile of today’s developed world.Yet this way of putting things in fact understates the magnitude of what has been misunderstood. Figure 1 denominates the scope of incarceration and policing by population. By that metric, the United States has an exceptionally high incarceration rate but a relatively normal number of police officers given the total size of its population. But we think it is more informative to denominate punishment and policing by the level of serious crime in a country. By doing so, it is possible to make inferences about cross-national differences in how countries manage serious crime.Here one runs into some difficulties. For several reasons, it is challenging to compare levels of serious crime across countries. Some countries criminalize acts that are perfectly legal in others. Countries define many criminal acts, such as “assault,” differently from one another.7 And countries vary widely in their ability to measure the incidence of criminal acts. The result is that many international patterns in reported data are obviously misleading. Data collected by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime, for instance, suggest that the rate of violent crime is higher in Belgium, France, and Canada than in El Salvador, Russia, or Rwanda.8 Our solution to this problem is to measure the rate of serious crime by the rate of homicides.For the comparisons that anchor this piece—the United States to the developed world—this immediately raises a problem. Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins have argued that “[r]ates of crime are not greatly different in the United States from those in other developed nations. … [O]ur extremely high rates of lethal violence are a … a distinct social problem.”9 If America has more lethal violence than Europe, but not more crime, the relatively high homicide rate in the United States would be a biased estimate of the rate of serious crime.We have two kinds of reasons for thinking that this is wrong and that the homicide rate is the right (or best) measure. First, given the reliability issues that bedevil the police or victim survey data on which Zimring and Hawkins and others rely, this is an area in which one has to take some cues from theory and other data. Consider, then, the following trilemma.Concentrated disadvantage is the root cause of most serious crime in developed societies.America has significantly more concentrated disadvantage than European countries.America has the same amount of serious crime as other developed countries.One of these three statements must be false. Criminological theory and existing social science evidence strongly support (1).10 And we think there is good evidence to support (2).11 The main theoretical reason to believe (3) is that the United States has far more guns per capita than European countries. But while firearm availability no doubt has some impact on the level of violence, we think the effect is likely to be small. A large effect would be difficult to square with other patterns across place, persons, and time. Consider, for example, that while the United States has ten times as many guns as El Salvador, the homicide rate there is roughly ten times higher than it is here.12 And that white, richer households in the United States are much more likely to report owning a gun than Black, poorer households.13 Given this and given the reasons to believe (1) and (2), we think (3) is most likely to be the false leg of this trilemma.The second reason—which does not depend on the first—is that homicide accounts for a large proportion of the total harm caused by crime. Insofar as standard measures of the crime rate give equal weight to each act criminalized by the state, they are conceptually meaningless. A society with a thousand petty larcenies and one murder has much less serious crime than a society with a thousand murders and one petty larceny, yet the raw crime rate would be the same in both. A meaningful measure thus has to account for the relative seriousness, or harmfulness, of each action.It is difficult to measure how harmful different kinds of crime are with any precision, but the cost-of-crime literature furnishes a first approximation. Economists estimate the social costs of different kinds of crime by asking people how much they would be willing to pay to reduce their odds of being a victim of various offenses. Summarizing this literature, Aaron Chalfin and Justin McCary estimated that the cost of a murder is around $7,000,000, the cost of an assault less than $40,000, the cost of a robbery around $13,000, and the cost of motor vehicle theft around $6,000.14 Thus, even though homicide is much less frequent than other crimes, it is judged so much more severe that it accounts for about seventy percent of the total costs of crime. This means that it is a much better estimate of the rate of serious harm than unweighted measures of the rate of crime. Figure 2 shows the same data, but this time denominated by homicide rather than by population.One immediately sees something different. Now, America’s outlying level of incarceration looks relatively ordinary. Its prisoner/homicide ratio is a little higher than the developed-world median, but not by much. No less stark is the fact that its police/homicide ratio now appears exceedingly low. That is, if denominated by the level of serious crime, America is not normally policed but rather under-policed. America has about one-ninth the number of police officers, per homicide, than does the median developed country.15One of the refrains of police reformers has been that American police are uniquely inefficient. Typically, when people argue that American people—and Black people, especially—have been under-protected and over-policed, they mean by this that the priorities of American police are skewed. Police focus too much on petty offenses and too little on serious crimes. This is the purpose of dwelling, for example, on the fact that only four percent of a typical police department’s time is devoted to handling violent crime.16And indeed, it is true that in comparative context the police in the United States do not solve many serious crimes. America’s clearance rate is the lowest of all comparable countries, as Figure 3 shows.17 The median developed country records around one homicide-related arrest per homicide that occurs. In the United States, the figure is 0.56.Yet this does not seem to be, as reformers imagine, because police in the United States are exceptionally focused on nonserious offenses. Consider one measure of police focus: the number of homicide arrests made per police officer. The clearance rate (homicide arrests/homicide) is the product of police focus (homicide arrests/police) and the police footprint (police/homicide). The conventional view of policing in the United States suggests that the problem with America’s clearance rate is that footprint is high, but focus is low. In fact, as Figure 3 suggests, the converse is true: footprint is low, but focus is high.One way of summarizing much of what we have shown so far is to observe that the United States seems to emphasize the severity of punishment over the certainty of sanction. The exceedingly high prison/police ratio and the low level of police per homicide together suggest that the United States relies on long sentences rather than the sanction of arrest to control crime. One way to estimate certainty and severity more directly is to decompose the prisoner/homicide ratio into the ratio of arrests to homicide (estimating certainty) and the ratio of prisoners to arrests (estimating severity). Figure 4 plots these two ratios across the developed world. The result supports our judgment: the United States has relatively low levels of certainty but relatively high levels of severity.One advantage of using homicides, arrests, and prisoners to measure these two concepts is that we can say something about how certainty and severity are distributed within the United States. As Figure 4 also shows, while all Americans suffer from an exceptional balance of certainty and severity, it is Black people in the United States who are especially subject to it.American police killed around 1,800 people in 2019. In the rest of the developed world, the average number of police killings is around 5 per year; the median is just 2. It seems intuitive that to reduce the level of police violence, we must reduce the footprint of the police. Yet cross-country comparisons suggest the opposite conclusion. As Figure 5 shows, there is a striking and negative cross-national correlation between the rate at which police kill civilians and the number of police officers per homicide.Countries with large numbers of police per homicide are countries in which police are much less likely to kill civilians, as compared to countries with fewer police per homicide. The countries of the developed world cluster on the bottom right of this graph (high police/homicide, low levels of police violence), while the countries of the developing world cluster toward the top left. The exception is the United States.To be clear, a negative correlation is not proof that lower levels of police/homicide cause the police to be more violent. Several possible confounders might explain the coincidence of high levels of police killing and homicide (e.g., inequality). It is even conceivable that the relationship could run in the reverse direction (high levels of police killing cause low public demand for policing). Because police killing is rare and our data are poor, causal inference is challenging.But there are some theoretical reasons to believe that this correlation is in fact causal. When violence overwhelms police resources, police make contact with only a small fraction of those who commit it. Under these circumstances, the civil treatment of a small fraction of offenders will have a negligible deterrent effect. Indeed, the American combination of small police footprint and brutality is reminiscent of the early modern state. As the opening pages of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish describe, when the infrastructural capacity of the state is low, exemplary but rare shows of spectacular force can be the most effective way to induce compliance with the law.18In addition, in societies where police resources struggle to keep pace with rates of interpersonal violence and private citizens are therefore more likely to arm themselves, police officers are more likely to behave brutally out of regard for their own interests. A severe sentencing regime such as ours could well exacerbate this dynamic since, under such a regime, there are stronger incentives for suspects to take extreme measures to evade apprehension and arrest. Thus, relying on severe and lengthy sentencing, rather than policing, to deter crime could make the job of policing more dangerous. And this might in turn make interactions with the police even more dangerous—for civilians.Of course, these inferences are speculative. Further empirical research is needed to test them. But we think the negative cross-national correlation between police killings and the number of police officers per homicide, along with the theoretical reasons to believe those correlations might be causal, should serve as a warning sign. It is not at all clear that reducing the number of police officers on the street would reduce the pervasiveness of police violence and abuse. And it suggests to us, again, that the obstacles to police reform run deep. Reformers often argue that police officers should be trained as “guardians” rather than “warriors.”19 But the training protocols that instill and entrench the warrior mindset may just be symptoms of under-policing.The United States is ridden with much more serious crime than other comparably wealthy societies. It responds to this exceptionally high level of serious crime with an exceptional combination of relatively small police forces and comparatively long sentences. And, tellingly, this regime reaches its apogee in the way it treats most disadvantaged people. What is to be done?The comparative observations we have made above suggest an obvious hypothesis. Perhaps the United States, like the rest of the developed world, ought to emphasize policing and penal certainty rather than incarceration and penal severity.20 Perhaps the United States ought to shift resources from incarceration to policing until the balance between the two looks more like the balance in the rest of the developed world. The implications of such a move—which we call the First World Balance—would be dramatic. The United States today has almost three times as many prisoners as police officers. If it raised no revenue but simply used the money saved by cutting prison populations to hire police officers until the ratio was the same as the ratio in the developed world (about 3.4 times as many police officers as prisoners), the new United States would have about 370,000 prisoners and 1.1 million police officers. That is, the First World Balance, if implemented in the United States, would be a society with about 1.9 million fewer prisoners and almost half a million more police officers.21 As we note later, this new United States would not be a dystopian police state. Moving to the First World Balance would in fact align the rate of policing in the United States with the rest of the developed world.But, of course, to note that moving to the First World Balance would align the United States with other countries is not to have shown that this would be a good thing. One cannot reason to normative policy conclusions from comparative empirical observations alone. To make these arguments, one has to connect fact to value. Would the First World Balance be justified?To understand our answer, it will be helpful to note three points about our approach.First, it was due to our shared interest in answering questions like this one that the two of us began to work together. Sociologists write about normatively laden questions but are taught to refrain from considering the normative implications of their arguments. It is no surprise that many of them do anyway, since it is those implications that give their vocation meaning. But social scientists’ lack of training in moral and political philosophy means that these conclusions are too often founded on ideology or intuition rather than rigorous normative argument. Some philosophers are interested in applying moral and political theory to puzzles that bear on real-world problems. But a lack of social training many of them to answers to these questions (or of those that do not empirical Thus, our is to empirical evidence and social theory with explicit normative where we to be as as In we do not to the theory of interpersonal or political (or the theory of out the implications of just that we the implications of a of In we that do not have implications for which suggests that our hands about these issues may not be the it We think that the combination of empirical and normative one would have to to our are various of that our case for the First World Balance should be as our to a about how the United States ought to a of penal readers will we the in our by the this a of And force a between prisons and police, when various kinds of social or are to We say more about we the in this way in our forthcoming book What’s Wrong with Mass but some is in think that in the long a of social policy would reduce crime by its root and in turn reduce the and demand for policing and In other we argue that any of or efficiency that the United States should social But a of social policy from to of this magnitude would the to some kind of over the Given the of the American movement and the of the American we doubt we will like this Our in this essay is to say something about what should be in the world in which we just in the world in which we would like to To say something about that we to that are only prisons and the the existing of money from prisons and police to social just as many reformers have As we argue in What’s Wrong with Mass this is because social policy is by what we call the To the root of crime would be to the for the most disadvantaged people in To do this by social would resources, since the of are not America’s most disadvantaged people. Because penal is in a way that social is it costs about a to run the developed most penal state but something like to run its most there is good evidence that social that are at the early and be at reducing But the same that these social also it for to them at The more the the more we can be that these will the of the and the social policy is but for crime while social policy can be but is it is not to the root of crime with to public Yet some might argue that we should from policing and incarceration even if this would result in more policing and concentrated imprisonment and on disadvantaged rather than on incarceration in disadvantaged can social in and political and policing, can entrench and And arrest records can be a disadvantage in the and the fact that many of those who are have their are all by the the with the many negative of incarceration and policing to sanction a in crime is serious crime has those same crime can social and exacerbate and concentrated disadvantage at the in a violent incentives to do things that are for social and violence can be and lack of and and are of in where crime is without to and reducing for public and other of often which the and of disadvantage in those And just as a criminal or an arrest can be a on the job of crime can be in extremely disadvantaged where can become a that serious crime the same kinds of as policing and concentrated we argue that state and an and between the of crime, and policing. The have to bear the of these no how state and to make them. The fact that of this are is an It is an of our But we think some of these are more just and more than we think that the us is how to strike the right penal What ought to be about the level of incarceration and the level of policing in today’s United in the 2 2 above in Figure should the United States how a might this that the state should how to strike the balance between incarceration and policing by that in this 2 2 that should we different of striking the balance between policing and incarceration to in the what we take to be the of moving to any in this what it would for the level of homicide and crime, the number of people in prison, and the number of people killed and by the police. What would to each of these if the United States to the First World homicide and other kinds of serious crime would The empirical literature on is that the size of police forces is a much more way to crime than the of prison sentences for those who are and The for this is well in and do not make the way than the of the they are people to the of their much more than in the It is by possible to to the of a prison only on the in the it is to be that the of arrest and would do more to deter crime than in the United States, a on policing is almost times more effective at crime than a on Our is that the First World Balance would be a world of a little more than four thousand fewer (and less crime more the costs to by mass incarceration would be its prison is extremely to the of It is difficult to put a number on this But one that a in prison is even as good as a this a of two million in the prison would be the of one million of thousand a of about The the rate (e.g., if for a in prison only of the of for a prison, rather than the the of the costs of policing. the one a world of more policing be a world of more on work by our is that the First World Balance would be a world of almost million more the other for the reasons we we that a world of more policing would be one of less police violence (about fewer people killed by the have to some way to these against each This is not but one to do the seems against the For the arrests to be reason to against our on the costs of these arrests to must the of the of less crime and less

This paper aims to study whether China’s OFDI has a significant crowding-out effect on the United States’ OFDI in Latin America and the Caribbean （LAC）, and to consider the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative. In the context of the strategic contraction of the United States and the active expansion of China’s global participation, western public opinion is worried about China’s rapidly expanding influence in LAC, the traditional sphere of influence of the United States. As OFDI is an important indicator of a country’s overseas economic activities, the study on whether China’s OFDI is crowding out the United States’ OFDI provides an important reference for judging the state of China-US relations in LAC. This paper uses a panel data set containing 35 LAC countries （regions） from 2003 to 2017, and divides the total sample into two sub-samples respectively according to the scale of natural resource abundance and government efficiency. Based on the gravity model, this paper uses the individual fixed effect model for empirical analysis, and the Spatial Durbin Model （SDM） to test the robustness of the regression results. The regression results of the individual fixed effect model show that, on the whole, every $1 increase in China’s OFDI will lead to a $2.23 increase in the United States’ OFDI. For resource-rich countries and regions, every $1 increase in China’s OFDI will lead to a $1.71 increase in the United States’ OFDI. For resource-poor countries and regions, China’s OFDI has no significant impact on the United States’ OFDI. For countries and regions with high-efficient governments, every $1 increase of China’s OFDI will lead to a $6.31 increase in the United States’ OFDI. However, if the host country and China sign a cooperation document to jointly build the Belt and Road, the promotion effect will be reduced to $0.04. For countries and regions with low-efficient governments, every $1 increase in China’s OFDI will lead to a $2.02 increase in the United States’ OFDI. Therefore, this paper concludes that in LAC, overall, China’s OFDI attracts the United States’ OFDI, and the Belt and Road Initiative has no significant negative impact on the United States’ OFDI, and also has no significant negative impact on the attraction of China’s OFDI to the United States’ OFDI. However, for resource-poor countries and regions in LAC, the positive impact on the attraction of China’s OFDI to the United States’ OFDI is insignificant. For countries and regions with high-efficient governments in LAC, the Belt and Road Initiative weakens the attraction of China’s OFDI to the United States’ OFDI. The regression results of SDM verify this conclusion. The results show that Chinese and American capital can coexist in LAC. In the future, these two countries can strengthen cooperation and deepen mutual trust under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, so as to eliminate the negative impact of the initiative on the United States’ OFDI in some countries and regions. This paper creatively takes the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative into account when studying the crowding-out effect of China’ OFDI, and empirically tests the conjecture that China’s ODFI has crowded out the United States’ OFDI in LAC through econometrics research. It enriches current research ideas in the field of OFDI.

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