As Clinton Goes, So Goes the State : Economy: Recession-weary California stands to benefit if the President-elect can deliver on his campaign promises.

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton rode to victory on a platform of economic growth, and that could mean good things for recession-mired California--provided the President-elect can deliver on his campaign promises.

Much of Clinton’s program--emphasizing job training and infrastructure spending, defense industry conversion, boosts in research and development, tax incentives, development of clean, green industries and loosening world markets--is just what’s needed to jump-start the state’s economy, some industry officials and economists say.

The most immediate effect could be a long-awaited surge in consumer confidence, about in time for the all-important Christmas shopping season--appropriate for the Arkansas native son who sold himself as “the man from Hope.”

Of course, there are many problems the new President won’t be able to help, particularly the persistent glut of commercial and industrial real estate space.

Still, “Clinton will probably pay more attention to California than President Bush . . . because until California turns around, there won’t be a vigorous national recovery,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Economic Development Corporation of Los Angeles County.

Following is a brief summary of the possible effects of Clinton’s economic proposals on key California industries:

AEROSPACE: The election of a Democrat to the White House has often meant bad news for defense contractors, but the industry is likely to fare no worse under Clinton than it would have under President Bush.

Defense spending has been on a sharp downward slide since it peaked in 1986, and even under Bush the industry was braced for continued austerity until the mid-1990s.

Clinton has not publicly vowed to kill any major weapons systems and has strongly endorsed a number of programs, including the McDonnell Douglas C-17 and the V-22 Osprey, produced by Boeing and Bell Helicopters.

While Clinton has opposed the Northrop B-2 bomber program, he is not expected to terminate the program before production of the 20 aircraft now on order. And Clinton said he plans to review, but not cancel, the Lockheed F-22 fighter jet program.

Indeed, the Clinton Administration is likely to use defense contracts generally to maintain jobs, particularly those involving key research staffs that he hopes to assign to civilian infrastructure jobs.

HIGH TECHNOLOGY: The Silicon Valley and other high-tech centers in California should be among the biggest beneficiaries of Clinton’s activist proposals.

With longtime industry ally Al Gore, the incoming vice president, acting as point man on technology, the Clinton Administration is expected to push for several measures: Stepped-up spending for a national network of high-capacity fiber-optic communications links; increased funding for the Commerce Department’s Advanced Technology Program; establishment of a network of manufacturing technology centers; shifting government research and development funding away from the military and toward civilian enterprises; more aggressive use of existing trade laws; tax relief for investment in research and development and new capital equipment, and a targeted capital gains tax cut for long-term investment.

Former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive John Young, who retired last week, has been mentioned as a contender for secretary of commerce. Alan Wolff, a Washington attorney and political strategist for the Semiconductor Industry Assn., is considered a leading candidate for the influential post of U.S. trade representative.

HEALTH CARE: A Clinton presidency will mean continued changes for the health care industry, California’s largest employer. It will continue to be a growth field, but companies must focus on marketing their cost-saving capabilities in order to prosper.

Clinton has promised to broaden health insurance coverage, control costs and impose a national limit on health care spending. He will leave the financing of health care primarily in the hands of private insurance companies, and will gradually require most employers to provide insurance.

A Clinton Administration will probably mean slower profit growth for pharmaceutical companies, significant consolidation of smaller health insurance companies and growth opportunities for health maintenance organizations and other managed care health systems.

Health care will become a more high-volume, low-unit-price, quality-controlled business, says Jacque Sokolov, a Los Angeles health cost consultant and adviser to the Clinton campaign.

Pharmaceutical makers may encounter price controls that reduce recent price increases, which have outstripped consumer price growth threefold. Biotech companies, an important California industry, hope that targeted capital gains tax incentives that Clinton has talked about will help them raise money, although they are also worried about downward pricing pressure on new drugs.

Manufacturers of medical devices and high-tech equipment, a major industry in Orange County and elsewhere in California, may also see a slowing in unit price growth.

TRADE: Although Clinton appeared to spar with President Bush during the campaign over the North American Free Trade Agreement and its effect on American jobs, their differences on the issue are not very significant.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is that NAFTA will sail through congressional approval easier under a Democratic presidency, said Lawrence B. Krause, an economist at UC San Diego’s Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

Krause doesn’t expect any immediate changes in economic policy under the Clinton Administration that would affect California’s trade ties with the Pacific. “There will be a rethinking of international economic policy, but it’s not on the top of his agenda,” he said.

California’s agricultural trade will be influenced by the President-elect’s interest in pursuing a successful conclusion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, but again, no major changes are seen coming soon.

“I don’t see Clinton as having that much of a philosophical difference from Bush on the GATT,” said Jack Kenward, vice president of the Rice Growers’ Assn. of California. “He’s far more concerned about the domestic economy, but from our perspective that doesn’t necessarily translate into opening rice markets in foreign countries like Japan.”

AGRICULTURE: California’s agriculture industry is as diverse as it is large, but one common thread running through many sectors is a worry over how the new Administration’s strong pro-environment stance will affect growers and ranchers.

“By and large, when one takes a position like that, it tends to be anti-agriculture and goes against our ability to use the tools of production--land use, water and pesticides,” said Jasper Hempel of the Western Growers Assn., whose members produce more than half of the fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts grown and shipped in the United States.

Many agriculture groups have railed against the Endangered Species Act--because they say it restricts land use--and have been lobbying for more agriculture-friendly changes when the law comes up for reauthorization.

“The Bush Administration said it would look at amending the act to balance economic hardships against the goals of the act,” Hempel said. “But we don’t know whether (the Clinton Administration) will look at it that way or reauthorize the act with no provisions for economic hardships.”

CONSTRUCTION: A key part of Clinton’s economic program is a “Rebuild America Fund,” a four-year, $20-billion plan to rebuild roads and bridges, create a high-speed rail system, develop a sophisticated communications network, create new environmental technologies and energy sources, and convert defense industries to accomplish these goals.

“Infrastructure spending is one way to get the economy going,” Kyser said.

For the state’s civil engineering, construction and trades businesses, infrastructure projects--new rail systems, bridges and freeway expansions--have been the only game in town as the glut of commercial and industrial buildings has slowed other construction, economists say.

But Thomas Langford, president of Parsons Corp., a construction management and engineering firm based in Pasadena, said there are still questions about whether Clinton’s programs will require matching funds from the state or local agencies, and how California’s projects may be affected by this week’s defeat of Proposition 156, the rail-transit bond measure.

Still, the state could reap long-term benefits from Clinton’s rebuilding program.

Times staff writers Ralph Vartabedian, Jonathan Weber, Susan Moffat, Karl Schoenberger and Donna K. H. Walters contributed to this story.