Pompeu Fabra University

About: Pompeu Fabra University is a education organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 8093 authors who have published 23570 publications receiving 858431 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitat Pompeu Fabra & UPF.

Monetary Policy, Risk-Taking, and Pricing : Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment

Abstract: We analyse the impact of monetary policy on bank risk-taking and pricing. Bolivia provides us with an excellent experimental setting to identify this impact. Its small economy is not synchronized with the US economy but its banking system is almost fully dollarized. Consequently the US federal funds rate is the appropriate measure of monetary policy. We study the impact of the federal funds rate on the riskiness and pricing of new bank loans granted in Bolivia between 1999 and 2003, a period of significant variation in the federal funds rate. We find robust evidence that a decrease in the US federal funds rate prior to loan origination raises the monthly probability of default on individual bank loans. We also find that initiating loans with a subprime credit rating or loans to riskier borrowers with current or past non-performance become more likely when the federal funds rate is low. However, loan spreads do not increase, seemingly even decrease, in changes in the probability of default. Hence banks do not seem to price the additional risk taken. Furthermore, banks with more liquid assets and less funds from foreign financial institutions take more risk when the federal funds rate is low, and reduce loan spreads more despite the additional risk they seemingly take.

A Bilingual Advantage in Visual Language Discrimination in Infancy

Abstract: The origins of the bilingual advantage in various cognitive tasks are largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that bilinguals' early capacities to track their native languages separately and learn about the properties of each may be at the origin of such differences. Spanish-Catalan bilingual and Spanish or Catalan monolingual infants watched silent video recordings of French-English bilingual speakers and were tested on their ability to discern when the language changed from French to English or vice versa. The infants' performance was compared with that of previously tested French-English bilingual and English monolingual infants. Although all groups of monolingual infants failed to detect the change between English and French, both groups of bilingual infants succeeded. These findings reveal that bilingual experience can modulate the attentional system even without explicit training or feedback. They provide a basis for explaining the ontogeny of the general cognitive advantages of bilinguals.

Regulation of the Sko1 transcriptional repressor by the Hog1 MAP kinase in response to osmotic stress

Abstract: Exposure of yeast to increases in extracellular osmolarity activates the Hog1 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), which is essential for the induction of gene expression required for cell survival upon osmotic stress. Several genes are regulated in response to osmotic stress by Sko1, a transcriptional repressor of the ATF/CREB family. We show by in vivo coprecipitation and phosphorylation studies that Sko1 and Hog1 interact and that Sko1 is phosphorylated upon osmotic stress in a Hog1-dependent manner. Hog1 phosphorylates Sko1 in vitro at multiple sites within the N-terminal region. Phosphorylation of Sko1 disrupts the Sko1–Ssn6–Tup1 repressor complex, and consistently, a mutant allele of Sko1, unphosphorylatable by Hog1, exhibits less derepression than the wild type. Interestingly, Sko1 repressor activity is further enhanced in strains with high protein kinase A (PKA) activity. PKA phosphorylates Sko1 near the bZIP domain and mutation of these sites eliminates modulation of Sko1 responses to high PKA activity. Thus, Sko1 transcriptional repression is controlled directly by the Hog1 MAPK in response to stress, and this effect is further modulated by an independent signaling mechanism through the PKA pathway.

Chimpanzee genomic diversity reveals ancient admixture with bonobos

Abstract: Our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, have a complex demographic history We analyzed the high-coverage whole genomes of 75 wild-born chimpanzees and bonobos from 10 countries in Africa We found that chimpanzee population substructure makes genetic information a good predictor of geographic origin at country and regional scales Multiple lines of evidence suggest that gene flow occurred from bonobos into the ancestors of central and eastern chimpanzees between 200,000 and 550,000 years ago, probably with subsequent spread into Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees Together with another, possibly more recent contact (after 200,000 years ago), bonobos contributed less than 1% to the central chimpanzee genomes Admixture thus appears to have been widespread during hominid evolution