Your editorial “Japan’s Immigration Harbinger” (Dec. 6) correctly underscores the profound and potentially huge shift in Japan’s immigration policy to address “an aging society and [the related] labor shortage.”

Mr. Henderson notes Paul M. Romer’s ideas relating the structure of incentives to innovation using the profoundly crucial role patent policy has played in pharmaceutical innovation. But in the 21st century governments have countered the otherwise positive impact of patents with all manner of pharmaceutical price controls.