ABSTRACT
Over the past several decades, California has been one of the principal engines of industrial innovation and growth within the American economy at large. Its jobcreating powers have been remarkable across all major sectors of production, even in manufacturing, which in much of the rest of the USA has been under considerable stress since the end of the 1960s. To be sure, the marked downturn in federal defence spending that occurred over the late 1980s and early 1990s had a deeply negative impact on the state’s economy, although this particular crisis appears now to have been largely surmounted. This circumstance in itself is potent testimony to the state’s underlying economic vigour and resilience.
