Those familiar with US corporate law are well aware that, in this field, a single small jurisdiction looms very large.  The state of Delaware is today the legal home to more than half of US public companies and about 64% of the Fortune 500.  It’s widely understood that no other US state even comes close, and there’s a substantial US corporate legal literature exploring the contours of, and seeking to explain, Delaware’s domestic dominance.  As I’ve ventured into the field of cross-border finance, however, I’ve been struck by the fact that Delaware isn’t really unique.  Taking a broad view of the regulatory fields relevant to cross-border corporate and financial services, there’s a set of small jurisdictions that are not merely successful in their respective fields of specialization, but are in fact globally dominant in those fields. 

In a current working paper I’ve selected a handful of these jurisdictions that I find particularly interesting; assessed whether extant theoretical paradigms can shed much light on their successes; and proposed an alternative approach that I think better captures their salient characteristics and competitive strategies – the so-called “market-dominant small jurisdiction,” or MDSJ.  The jurisdictions studied include Bermuda, well-established among the world’s preeminent insurance markets; Singapore, a rising power in wealth management; Switzerland, the long-standing global leader in private banking; and Delaware, the predominant jurisdiction of incorporation for US public companies and a global competitor in the organization of various forms of business entities.

The interesting question, of course, is why these small jurisdictions have been able to achieve global dominance in their respective specialties – and the paper includes an extended treatment of various theoretical lenses to which one might turn for an explanation.  None, however, can account for the range of jurisdictions that I identify.  Notably, while taxation (or lack thereof) certainly looms large as a competitive strategy in each case, the “tax haven” literature can’t explain the global dominance of these particular jurisdictions.  Simply put, it’s implausible that a new entrant could meaningfully challenge the competitive position of any of these jurisdictions simply by copying their tax codes, or any other component of their regulatory structures for that matter.  Each has a substantive domain of service-based expertise providing a source of real competitive advantage beyond the jurisdiction’s black-letter law – and this renders it effectively impossible to compete with these jurisdictions simply by copying and pasting their laws into one’s own books.  

The“offshore financial center” literature looks beyond tax, emphasizing cross-border services as such, yet encounters its own problems.  This literature has been heavily preoccupied with recent entrants, reflecting strong preoccupation with the global acceleration of cross-border finance since the late 1960s – an inclination that’s tended to distract this literature from the commonalities with early movers like Delaware and Switzerland, which rose to prominence in the early 20^th Century.  In this light, it’s critical to observe that some of the most successful of the small jurisdictions active in cross-border finance aren’t actually “offshore” at all – again, including Delaware and Switzerland.  I argue that the onshore/offshore distinction has obscured more than it illuminates; it simultaneously fails to provide a comprehensive account of what’s truly distinctive about the range of successful small jurisdictions, and overstates the distinction between “us” (onshore) and “them” (offshore) – particularly in terms of involvement in problematic practices, which occur in both settings (of which more below).  The rhetorical function of this distinction is largely to paint small jurisdictions’ activities as uniquely and exclusively problematic, obscuring both small-market positives and big-market negatives. 

In developing my alternative – this “market-dominant small jurisdiction” (MDSJ) concept – I draw upon these and other literatures while endeavoring to avoid their limitations.  I argue that, notwithstanding substantial differences, these jurisdictions do exhibit fundamental commonalities in their contextual features and economic development strategies:

MDSJs are small and poorly endowed in natural resources, limiting their economic development options.  This creates a strong incentive to innovate in law and finance, while rendering credible their long-term commitment to the innovations undertaken.  These jurisdictions substantially depend on their legal and financial structures, and the market knows it. 

They possess legislative autonomy – the critical resource for such innovation.  This is obvious for sovereigns like Singapore and Switzerland, yet full-blown sovereignty isn’t required.  Delaware possesses sufficient room to maneuver under the internal affairs doctrine, and Bermuda – a British overseas territory – benefits from an express delegation of legislative authority.

MDSJs tend to be culturally proximate to major economic powers, and favorably situated geographically vis-à-vis those powers.  These ties can arise in various ways – through colonialism, common histories, and/or geography.  But in each case, their identification with – and capacity to interact closely with – multiple powers positions them to perform important regional and global “bridging” functions in cross-border finance. 

• Bermuda has long bridged the Atlantic, maintaining strong ties with the UK and North America alike.  They benefit from the substantial ballast of association with the British legal system and insurance market (i.e. Lloyds) on one side, and proximity to the massive US economy and insurance market on the other. 
• Singapore has long bridged East and West, having been established as a British colony to maintain an East Asian trade route.  Their location allowed them to contribute to the creation of a 24-hour global securities trading system – in the morning taking the baton from US markets that just closed, and in the afternoon handing the baton to European markets that just opened.  Since the 2000s Singapore has developed a two-way wealth management strategy, serving as the entry point for Western money into East Asia, and the entry point for rapidly accumulating East Asian money into the West – a strategy facilitated by a highly educated, bilingual (Mandarin-English) working population. 
• Switzerland, located in the heart of Europe, borders on and transacts in the native languages of each of the surrounding economic powers.  German, French, and Italian are all official languages, and English-language proficiency is widespread as well. 
• Delaware plays an under-explored bridging function in the US political economy, standing between and interacting with both the finance capital (New York) and the political capital (DC) – a geographic feature touted in corporate marketing materials. 

In addition to these contextual commonalities, MDSJs exhibit similar economic development strategies.  Notably, they’ve heavily invested in human capital, professional networks, and related institutional structures.  The aim is to foster a community of financial professionals with the incentives and capacity to develop high value-added niche specializations – a project eased by the fact that these are small places.  In each case the relevant public and private stakeholders often know one another personally, facilitating consensus and responsiveness to evolving markets.  Additionally, these public and private constituencies share largely homogenous interests – they all prosper if finance prospers.

Finally, MDSJs consciously seek to balance close collaboration with, and robust oversight of, the relevant professional communities – the aim being to at once convey flexibility, stability, and credibility.  Essentially these jurisdictions seek to avoid over-regulation frowned upon by the market, while at the same time avoiding under-regulation frowned upon by regulators in other jurisdictions.  In so doing, they generally try to bring private-sector experience to bear upon the regulatory design process, seeking to maintain cutting-edge regulatory regimes while at the same time conveying stability and credibility to global markets and their foreign regulatory counterparts. In each case this dual aim is reinforced by additional confidence-enhancing features – notably, low levels of perceived public corruption, and multi-party support for the development of financial services capacity.

The paper explores the embodiment of these characteristics in some depth, and ultimately suggests that examining such jurisdictions through this lens could offer tangible benefits as we continue to assess their costs and benefits in cross-border finance.  While potential abuse of the structures available in each of these jurisdictions is acknowledged – including money laundering and tax evasion – these problems are not unique to so-called “offshore” jurisdictions.  Notwithstanding Delaware’s extraordinary contribution to the development of substantive corporate law – principally attributable to their expert bench and bar – the state has been roundly criticized for creating some of the world’s most opaque shell companies.  At the same time, US calls for greater tax transparency are undercut by the fact that we ourselves don’t tax interest income on – and accordingly don’t require 1099s for – non-resident alien accounts.  In this light, to avoid charges of a regulatory double standard, US policymakers seeking greater financial and tax transparency – efforts I broadly support – may have to start by cleaning up their own backyards.

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