High-Technology Development and Recession: The Local Experience in the United States,1980-1982

Abstract

Various theoretical beliefs about high-technology industry's performance during recession are reviewed. The relative employment performances of matched pairs of U. S. high-tech and non-high-tech counties during the 1980-1982 recession are analyzed. High-tech counties, as a group, are found to have performed significantly better, but outcomes were far from universal. At the individual county level, correlations between changes in high tech and other individual industries were low, suggesting a higher scale of operational processes, consequent difficulties for locally based high-tech policy, and the need to explore and understand the differing experiences of particular areas.