Williams College

About: Williams College is a education organization based out in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 2257 authors who have published 5015 publications receiving 213160 citations. The organization is also known as: Williams.

Macro Financial Determinants of the Great Financial Crisis: Implications for Financial Regulation

Abstract: We provide a cross-country and cross-bank analysis of the financial determinants of the Great Financial Crisis using data on 83 countries from the period 1998 to 2006. First, our cross-country results show that the probability of suffering the crisis in 2008 was larger for countries having higher levels of credit deposit ratio whereas it was lower for countries characterized by higher levels of: (i) net interest margin, (ii) concentration in the banking sector, (iii) restrictions to bank activities, (iv) private monitoring. The bank-level analysis reinforces these results and shows that the latter factors are also key determinants across banks, thus explaining the probability of bank crisis. Our findings contribute to extend the analytical toolkit available for macro and micro-prudential regulation.

Argument Mining with Structured SVMs and RNNs

Abstract: We propose a novel factor graph model for argument mining, designed for settings in which the argumentative relations in a document do not necessarily form a tree structure. (This is the case in over 20% of the web comments dataset we release.) Our model jointly learns elementary unit type classification and argumentative relation prediction. Moreover, our model supports SVM and RNN parametrizations, can enforce structure constraints (e.g., transitivity), and can express dependencies between adjacent relations and propositions. Our approaches outperform unstructured baselines in both web comments and argumentative essay datasets.

Stick Numbers and Composition of Knots and Links

Abstract: We address the concept of stick number for knots and links under various restrictions concerning the length of the sticks, the angles between sticks, and placements of the vertices. In particular, we focus on the effect of composition on the various stick numbers. Ultimately, we determine the traditional stick number for an infinite class of knots, which are the (n,n-1)-torus knots together with all of the possible compositions of such knots. The exact stick number was previously known for only seven knots.

Macroeconomic stability in developing countries - How much is enough?

Abstract: In the 1990s macroeconomic policies improved in a majority of developing countries, but the growth dividend from such improvement fell short of expectations, and a policy agenda focused on stability turned out to be associated with a multiplicity of financial crises. The authors take a retrospective look at the content and implementation of the macroeconomic reform agenda of the 1990s. They review the progress achieved with fiscal, monetary, and exchange rate policies across the developing world, and the effectiveness of the changing policy framework in promoting stability and growth. The main lesson is that slow growth and frequent crises resulted, more often than not, from shortcomings in the reform agenda of the 1990s. These shortcomings essentially concern the depth and breadth of the macroeconomic reform agenda, its attention to macroeconomic vulnerabilities, and the complementary reforms outside the macroeconomic sphere.

unc-45 gene of Caenorhabditis elegans encodes a muscle-specific tetratricopeptide repeat-containing protein.

Abstract: The unc-45 gene of the nematode, Caenorhabditis elegans, is essential for muscle organization and embryonic development. Genetic evidence suggests the unc-45 gene product controls muscle thick filament assembly. We report here on the determination of the gene's chromosomal location and the isolation and sequencing of its cDNA. The amino terminus of the predicted unc-45 protein contains three tandem repeats that belong in the tetratricopeptide repeat family. Tetratricopeptide motifs have been shown to be involved in protein interactions, and some of the closest homologues have chaperone-like activity. The carboxy terminus of the protein has homology with the related fungal proteins, CRO1 and She4p, which have been postulated to play a role in assembly of or interactions with a cytoplasmic myosin. We have also determined the sequence of the homologous gene from C. briggsae, which demonstrates a high level of conservation. We show that the unc-45 gene promoter can drive reporter gene expression, which is limited to muscle tissues (pharyngeal, body wall, vulval, and anal muscles), consistent with a role for the unc-45 gene in muscle development or function. Cell Motil. Cytoskeleton 42:163–177, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.