2 resultados para Economic Conditions--Southern States
em CaltechTHESIS
Resumo:
A person living in an industrialized society has almost no choice but to receive information daily with negative implications for himself or others. His attention will often be drawn to the ups and downs of economic indicators or the alleged misdeeds of leaders and organizations. Reacting to new information is central to economics, but economics typically ignores the affective aspect of the response, for example, of stress or anger. These essays present the results of considering how the affective aspect of the response can influence economic outcomes.
The first chapter presents an experiment in which individuals were presented with information about various non-profit organizations and allowed to take actions that rewarded or punished those organizations. When social interaction was introduced into this environment an asymmetry between rewarding and punishing appeared. The net effects of punishment became greater and more variable, whereas the effects of reward were unchanged. The individuals were more strongly influenced by negative social information and used that information to target unpopular organizations. These behaviors contributed to an increase in inequality among the outcomes of the organizations.
The second and third chapters present empirical studies of reactions to negative information about local economic conditions. Economic factors are among the most prevalent stressors, and stress is known to have numerous negative effects on health. These chapters document localized, transient effects of the announcement of information about large-scale job losses. News of mass layoffs and shut downs of large military bases are found to decrease birth weights and gestational ages among babies born in the affected regions. The effect magnitudes are close to those estimated in similar studies of disasters.
Resumo:
I. Foehn winds of southern California.
An investigation of the hot, dry and dust laden winds
occurring in the late fall and early winter in the Los Angeles
Basin and attributed in the past to the influences of the desert
regions to the north revealed that these currents were of a
foehn nature. Their properties were found to be entirely due
to dynamical heating produced in the descent from the high level
areas in the interior to the lower Los Angeles Basin. Any dust
associated with the phenomenon was found to be acquired from the
Los Angeles area rather than transported from the desert. It was
found that the frequency of occurrence of a mild type foehn of this
nature during this season was sufficient to warrant its classification
as a winter monsoon. This results from the topography of
the Los Angeles region which allows an easy entrance to the air
from the interior by virtue of the low level mountain passes north
of the area. This monsoon provides the mild winter climate of
southern California since temperatures associated with the foehn
currents are far higher than those experienced when maritime air
from the adjacent Pacific Ocean occupies the region.
II. Foehn wind cyclo-genesis.
Intense anticyclones frequently build up over the high level
regions of the Great Basin and Columbia Plateau which lie between
the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to the west and the Rocky
Mountains to the east. The outflow from these anticyclones produce
extensive foehns east of the Rockies in the comparatively low
level areas of the middle west and the Canadian provinces of
Alberta and Saskatchewan. Normally at this season of the year very
cold polar continental air masses are present over this territory
and with the occurrence of these foehns marked discontinuity surfaces
arise between the warm foehn current, which is obliged to slide over
a colder mass, and the Pc air to the east. Cyclones are
easily produced from this phenomenon and take the form of unstable
waves which propagate along the discontinuity surface between the
two dissimilar masses. A continual series of such cyclones was
found to occur as long as the Great Basin anticyclone is maintained
with undiminished intensity.
III. Weather conditions associated with the Akron disaster.
This situation illustrates the speedy development and
propagation of young disturbances in the eastern United States
during the spring of the year under the influence of the conditionally
unstable tropical maritime air masses which characterise the
region. It also furnishes an excellent example of the superiority
of air mass and frontal methods of weather prediction for aircraft
operation over the older methods based upon pressure distribution.
IV. The Los Angeles storm of December 30, 1933 to January 1, 1934.
This discussion points out some of the fundamental interactions
occurring between air masses of the North Pacific Ocean in connection
with Pacific Coast storms and the value of topographic and
aerological considerations in predicting them. Estimates of rainfall
intensity and duration from analyses of this type may be made and
would prove very valuable in the Los Angeles area in connection with
flood control problems.