Big Winner Research Articles

Comment on “NASA big winner in budget” by M. Mulhall] Planetary research loses

The news story “NASA Big Winner in Budget” (Eos, March 6, 1990, p. 315) is misleading, especially since it is printed in a publication that chiefly addresses scientists. One can imagine that the 24% increase in the budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration benefits someone, but that certainly does not include working planetary research scientists.The article says that the budget “contains healthy increases for most activities.” Seeing the apparent increase in the Research and Analysis (R&A) line‐item for Planetary Exploration (from $70.6 to $89.5 million between Fiscal Year 1990 and FY 1991), one might think that planetary research will suddenly benefit after a decade of erosion and decline. But that is not true.

Science big in 1989 budget

The $1.09 trillion budget that President Reagan sent to Congress on February 18, 1988, calls for large increases in science and technology spending while staying close to but not always within the limits of the budget summit agreement reached by the White House and congressional leaders late in 1987.Big science was a big winner in the Fiscal Year (FY) 1989 spending plan, the last budget that the Reagan administration will bring to Congress. The Space Station and the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), two multibillion dollar federal projects that received ambiguous financial support from the House and Senate last year, will be back again, with requests of nearly $1 billion for the Space Station and $363 million for the SSC. For FY 1988, Congress approved $25 million for the SSC and funded the Space Station at $425 million, less than half the amount the White House originally requested. Reagan's 1989 budget also requests appropriations for the Space Station totaling $6 billion through 1991

Comment on A. Dixit, "Issues of Strategic Trade Policy for Small Countries"

clearly points out a new direction for research on international trade and strategic behavior. How does a small country fare in a world of conflicting interests? In the standard trade model, the small country by the very virtue of its size comes out as a big winner when the world moves from autarky to free trade. It suffices to have a world consisting of only two countries - a big one and a small one - to get across the message of the importance of being unimportant. Of course, such smallness can only be associated with large terms-of-trade gains provided that the large country refrains, for one reason or another, from using its monopoly power. The question of gains from trade in a world consisting of more than two countries, and preferably of more than two goods, becomes quite tricky. It is not at all clear that a small country can gain proportionally more than its bigger trading partners. Examples in support of the conclusion of the standard two-country model could easily be imagined, but examples yielding the opposite conclusion are equally easy to concoct. It seems to me that models consisting of at least three countries are

Budget '85: Defense Still the Big Winner

Budget '85: Defense Still the Big Winner

Regulatory agency budgets up in fiscal 1981

The Administration's fiscal 1981 budget proposal contains mixed results for the federal regulatory agencies that affect the chemical community. Budgets for most of the agencies would be up, but the inflation rate in fiscal 1981 will pretty much determine whether the agencies gain ground, hold their own, or lose in fiscal 1981. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission by anyone's standards would be the biggest winner in the budget proposal. In the wake of the Three Mile Island accident, the agency is slated for a budget increase of 25%, or $94 million, to $468.5 million. It also would get 356 new people. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration would get a hefty increase. It is slated for a budget increase of 13% to $211.8 million. OSHA's enforcement budget of $128.5 million, up 6% is expected to provide for 65,000 federal inspections in fiscal 1981, 3000 more than in 1980. Resources for OSHA's safety and health standards development ...