erywhere in control of the forces of nature." Within the next 15 years, Kahn predicts, the growth in the world's population will crest and the rate of increase in total goods and services— the gross world product—will reach its height. In fact, he thinks that 1976 will be the peak year for world population growth. This year the world's population is expected to increase 2.1%, he says, a rate that probably will never be achieved again. The gross world product will reach its fastest rate of growth in world history during the next decade, Kahn believes, as much of the world's population catches up with the affluence of the wealthier countries. By 1985 or 1990, he expects a peaking in this rate of growth, not because of any limit imposed by the earth's resources, but because "when you are rich, you just don't work as hard." Already this catching up has begun, Kahn says. A generation ago, if all the world's wealth had been divided equally among all the people, everyone would have been desperately poor. This is no longer true, he says. The annual per capita income of the world today is $1300, low by U.S. standards, but far above the sustenance level. Desperate poverty is no longer a world problem, he says, only a regional one. Only 25% of the world population is desperately poor; more than half of these are in India. "As far as we know, there are no poor Chinese," he says, for example. The countries where per capita income will grow the fastest in the next decade are those of the Pacific Basin, Kahn predicts, including Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, but probably not China. Per capita income in these countries already is growing at the rate of 6 to 12% per year in these countries and will surpass that of the U.S. by the end of the century. D
R&D spending abroad by U.S. firms rising The high cost of doing research in the U.S. apparently still is driving much U.S. R&D spending abroad. A Conference Board report released this week shows that U.S.-based multinational corporations now are doing more of their R&D overseas than ever before. From 1966 to 1975, the Conference Board says, R&D spending by foreign affiliates of U.S. companies more than doubled, from $537 million to a hefty $1.3 billion. Spending grew most between 1966 and 1972—at a 6
C&ENMay24, 1976
14% annual rate, roughly three times the rate of growth for R&D spending in the U.S. by parent companies and by all U.S. industries in the same period. Overseas spending has slowed in recent years, however, rising only 3.2% between 1972 and 1975. Predictably, the Conference Board says, most overseas R&D spending is concentrated in science-based industries such as chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and instruments. In 1966, for example, $30 million went to pharmaceutical research abroad, and $33.5 million went into chemical product R&D. By 1975 pharmaceutical spending had increased to $79 million, up 163%, and chemical R&D gained 204% to $102 million. These spending increases work out to about a 10% annual growth rate for pharmaceuticals, and roughly a 12% annual rate for chemicals during the 10-year period. Just as R&D spending is concentrated in a few industries, the bulk of money went into a handful of
Princeton's Fefferman Dr. Charles L. Fefferman, 27, a Princeton University mathematician, has been selected as the first recipient of the National Science Foundation's $150,000 Alan T. Waterman Award. Established by Congress last year, the award consists of a medal and a grant of $50,000 a year for three years for advanced study or research at a U.S. institution of the recipient's choice. The new award is to be given annually to an outstanding researcher who is not over 40 years of age, who is a U.S. citizen, and who has exhibited "outstanding capability and exceptional promise for significant future achievement." Fefferman's rise to prominence in his field, an NSF background paper says, has been described by his colleagues as "remarkable" and "spectacular." He entered the University of Maryland at age 14 and graduated three years later receiving a B.S. with high honors in mathematics and physics. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton at age 20. While a graduate student at Princeton, he was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, becoming the youngest holder of that award. He was a lecturer at Princeton from 1969 to 1970, when he was named assistant professor at the University of Chicago. One year later he was promoted to full professor. And after working three years at Chicago, he was named full professor at Princeton in 1974. Fefferman has received various other honorary awards and has held visiting positions
countries, primarily Canada, the U.K., and West Germany, and to a lesser extent France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy. In recent years, West Germany has increased its share of U.S. overseas R&D spending, up from 22% in 1966 to 30% in 1975, and largely at the expense of Canada and the U.K. Yet highly industrialized Japan still accounts for less than 1% of foreign R&D spending by U.S. companies. One reason for increased overseas R&D spending, the New York Citybased business analysis group suggests in its survey of 500 companies, is a pronounced wage difference between the U.S. and foreign countries. In 1972, for example, foreign scientists and engineers averaged about $12,000 annually, compared with about $18,400 for their counterparts in U.S. parent companies. Support personnel are even less costly abroad, averaging about $7000 per year in wages vs. about $15,100 annually in the U.S. D
NSF's new award
Fefferman: three-year grant
or given lectures at several major universities in the U.S. and overseas. The first year's winner was selected by a blue ribbon panel chaired by Dr. Melvin Calvin, director of the laboratory of chemical biodynamics at the University of California, Berkeley. At award ceremonies in Washington, D.C., last week, Fefferman was cited specifically for "his researches in Fourier analysis, partial differential equations, and several complex variables that have brought fresh insight and renewed vigor to the classical areas of mathematics and contributed signally to the advancement of modern mathematical analysis." •
