President Trump’s tariff can rise. His efforts to reduce federal workforce can increase unemployment. But ask economists about any of the management policies they care about and indicate discounts in federal support for scientific research.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has canceled or freezes billions of dollars from federal scholarships that have been provided to researchers through the National Institutes of Health, and moved to limit its financing sharply to academic medical centers and other institutions. It also attempted, through the initiative called the Ministry of Governmental efficiency, to launch hundreds of workers at the National Science Corporation, an independent federal agency. The visas of hundreds of students born abroad were canceled.
For economists, policies threaten to undermine American competitiveness in emerging areas such as artificial intelligence, leaving Americans as a whole poorest, less healthy and less productive in the coming decades.
“Universities are very important engines for innovation,” said Sabrina Huil, a professor of New York University who studied the role of the federal government in supporting innovation. “This kills the goat that puts the golden egg.”
Scientists have warned that the United States is risking the loss of its position as a leader in advanced research and its reputation as a magnetic for higher scientific minds from all over the world.
Indeed, laboratories all over the country began to demobilize workers and cancel projects – in some cases, the clinical experiences that were already underway – and high universities, including Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, were announced. France and other countries began to recruit American scientists, and promised a more welcome environment.
Economists argue through the wide ideological spectrum that investments in scientific research-especially the type of basic research in the early stage, which are very risky to attract investors from the private sector-among the most effective uses of taxpayers dollars. Research has found that every dollar investor in research and development is due to about 5 dollars in economic gains, a number that is likely to reduce the real return because it does not explain the benefits that are not captured in the scales of gross domestic product, such as longer and more entertainment time.
Benjamin F. said. Jones, Economist at Northwestern University: “It is like a machine – you put a dollar in the device and you will get $ 5,” Jones, Economist at Northwestern University. “From a societal point of view, it is an incredibly highly returned activity that we are already doing a little.”
Unexpected discoveries
Hudson Fariz was a university student at Indiana University in the 1960s when his assistant teacher, Thomas Brook, began studying microbes that live in hot springs at Yellowstone National Park – a work supported by a grant from the National Science Corporation. He remembers the rack of excitement the first time that he sees through a microscope and saw one of these microbes, Thermus Aquaticus, Growth at a temperature was previously thought impossible.
“I got out of goat bumps,” he said. “I was the first person in the world to see this under a microscope.”
After two decades, this organism has proven vibrant to develop the reaction of the polymerization chain, or PCR, a process of repetition of the DNA that is almost on the basis of almost all genetic sciences. Dr. Fariz went to his own research career – with the support of federal scholarships as well – studying a biological process that plays a role in dozens of rare genetic disorders.
Dr. Friends, as a university student and as a professional world, explains the unique role of the government in scientific research. Few private investors will care about disorders that affect a handful of patients, much less in a project that studies yellow mud that grows in a national garden. However, this search has resulted in enormous profits.
Dr. Fariz said: “Some of these things really pay their fruits, some of them no – this is the science.” “The federal government has the ability to seize the opportunity.
The American search and development system traces its roots to World War II, when the government poured money in universities and private companies, as it defended the progress of aviation, communications and atomic weapons. These relations have deepened in the following decades, as the federal government funds projects related to the cold war and space race, as well as research in basic sciences and medicine.
This research paved the way for many technologies that are essential to the modern economy. The Internet started as a network of university computers, funded by the Ministry of Defense. Google started as a project for graduate students in Stanford, Funded by a grant from the National Science Corporation. Almost all modern medicine depends, to some extent, on research supported by the Federal dollar. As well as a lot of commercial agriculture.
These discoveries have assisted collectively in pushing the rapid economic growth of the United States and the growing standard of living in the twentieth century. A Modern paper The Federal Reserve in Dallas has found that government investments in research and development represent at least five of the growth of US productivity since World War II.
“He had a great impact on people’s living standards,” said Andrew Fieldhaus, an economist at the University of Texas A & M, who was one of the authors of the study. “Economic growth has been greatly fed.”
Fears for driving
Federal investment in science has decreased, as a share of the economy, since the end of the Cold War, and Dr. Fieldhaus’s work indicates that this is part of the reason for slowing productivity as well.
Researchers warn that the Trump administration policies can allow us science backward. The National Institutes of Health, for example, suggested setting the rate in which the government pays universities and other research institutions for “indirect costs”, such as facilities and employees who are not related to a specific research project. in Monday’s work paper By the National Office for Economic Research, a group of economists found that this policy will lead to significant discounts in financing and will not affect incompatible institutions that have the most successful research programs.
Daniel B. Gross, an economist at Duke University, has been one of the authors of the study: “We have passed good operation over the past sixty to 80 years.” “Sometimes you don’t realize the value of something until it disappears.”
Fears related to the loss of Earth in science are particularly sharp in artificial intelligence, and the technology that experts believe is likely to pay productivity gains in the coming decades. American companies took control of the early stages of the artificial intelligence revolution, in part, due to the fact that many foundational works were carried out in the universities of the United States.
But this year’s release for Deepseek, a advanced model of artificial intelligence developed by a Chinese company, was seen by Some American technology leaders As a new “moment of Sputnik” – a sign that the United States needs to double its efforts to avoid knees.
White House officials reject the idea that management policies undermine American leadership in science and technology. Vice President JD Vance, in a A letter in Paris In February, he called for a reduction in the restrictions imposed on the development of artificial intelligence, among other steps, to ensure that the United States remains advanced on China and other competitors.
Speaking of the background, a White House official said that the administration’s movements to freeze grants and reduce payment rates reflect efforts to make federal investments in research more efficient, not to reduce science support in general.
Improvement
Experts say there is a wide space for reforming the Federal grant provision. Federal financing application times have become gradually longer over the years, and the researchers devote an increasing share of their time to papers aimed at ensuring that government money is not wasted.
“When I heard the initial idea of ​​Wug, I thought, there may be some momentum or the motive behind doing something here,” said Stewart Pak, director of the good science project, a non -profit organization and news messages criticizing the FBI system.
So far, though, Dr. Pak felt disappointed. He said that by focusing on the alleged waste, and canceling the projects that are seen as a step with the political priorities of the administration-such as research related to race and sex or climate change-can make Dog and other Trump administration’s efforts more than risks.
“It is confusing to me that many of these efforts seem to be directed towards the madness of greatness towards any fraud or any possible inverted activity.” “There are many examples as a study that seemed trivial at some point in a timely manner, which led to a later penetration.”
Scientists have similar concerns about some of the recent administration’s immigration moves, including the abolition of students’ visas participating in political protests.
Migrants have long played an inconsistent role in scientific and technological progress in the United States. A 2022 studies It has been found that immigrants may represent 36 percent of the country’s total innovations since 1990, and it was measured through patents, although they constitute less than 20 percent of the population. It is also more likely to start companies and work in startups from the Americans born.
“The migrants are really important, and they outperform their weight,” said Britta Glenon, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, who studied the role of immigrants in innovation.
She added that the United States can become the United States less attractive to global talent if foreign students and scientists no longer have to welcome the country, even without official transformations in the immigration policy, the United States can become less attractive to global talents if foreign students and scientists no longer welcome. A The last working paper By Dr. Glenon and three participating authors found that Chinese students became less likely to study in the United States during the first Trump administration, even before he set official restrictions.
She said: “We know that international students respond to how they realize the labor market in the United States and the extent of their acceptance of migrants.” “It is quite clear that he is not very receptive at the moment, so it will have traces.”
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