A committee formed to study the competitiveness of the U.S. capital markets finds that the U.S. market is still losing ground.

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation today released a report that it says shows that the competitiveness of America’s public equity markets deteriorated through the first three quarters of this year and continues to be at historical lows.

It found that foreign companies delisting shares from U.S. exchanges increased from a dozen a decade ago, to 30 in 2006 and a record 56 already in the first 10 months of this year. Also, in 1996, eight of the 20 largest global IPO’s were listed on a U.S. exchange. That plunged to one in 2006, and for the first 10 months of 2007 not one of the top 20 listed here. Finally, the percentage of U.S. IPOs listed only on a non-U.S. exchange (by value) increased from 0.1% in 1996-2005 to 1.1% in 2006 and 4.3% through Sept., 30 of this year.

“It is particularly distressing that a year after the committee sounded the alarm on our eroding competitiveness little has been done to address this problem. Our overall position is not improving and in some cases is getting worse,” said CCMR director Hal Scott, the Nomura professor and director of International Financial Systems at Harvard Law School.

“With striking losses in our competitiveness already demonstrated, there simply is no longer any prudent argument for delay,” argued Scott. “A year ago, the committee outlined a number of constructive steps to address and restore and enhance our markets’ competitiveness. We know the policy measures that must be taken, but the response has been only about two on a scale of 10 – not nearly enough, or soon enough.”