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.

Introduction, dispersal and potential impacts of the green crab Carcinus maenas in San Francisco Bay, California

Abstract: The North Atlantic portunid crab Carcinus maenas (Linnaeus, 1758) has invaded the North Pacific Ocean following more than two centuries of global dispersal due to human activities. C. maenas was first collected in San Francisco Bay, California, in 1989–1990, where its distribution and prey selectivity were investigated in 1992–1994. It has become abundant in shallow, warm lagoons (which as favorable and retentive microhabitats may have served as invasion incubators) and spread throughout the north, central and south bays. It may have arrived in ballast water, on fouled ships, amongst algae with imported live bait or lobsters, or by intentional release; genetic comparisons of the Bay population with possible source populations may aid in defining the transport mechanism. C. maenas' eurytopic nature, its high breeding potential, and its diet and feeding behavior suggest the potential for extensive ecosystem alterations through predator-prey interactions, competition, disturbance, and indirect effects. Although both negative economic impacts through reduction or disruption of fisheries and positive impacts of providing bait and human-food fisheries have been documented in a few regions, the potential economic impacts in San Francisco Bay remain largely unknown.

Infrastructure, long‐run economic growth and causality tests for cointegrated panels

Abstract: We investigate the consequences of various types of infrastructure provision in a panel of countries from 1950 to 1992. We develop new tests which enable us to isolate the sign and direction of long-run effects in a manner that is robust to the presence of unknown heterogeneous short-run causal relationships. We show that while infrastructure does tend to cause long-run economic growth, there is substantial variation across countries. We also provide evidence that each infrastructure type is provided at close to the growth-maximizing level on average globally, but is under-supplied in some countries and over-supplied in others.

On the psychology of confessions: does innocence put innocents at risk?

Abstract: The Central Park jogger case and other recent exonerations highlight the problem of wrongful convictions, 15% to 25% of which have contained confessions in evidence. Recent research suggests that actual innocence does not protect people across a sequence of pivotal decisions: (a) In preinterrogation interviews, investigators commit false-positive errors, presuming innocent suspects guilty; (b) naively believing in the transparency of their innocence, innocent suspects waive their rights; (c) despite or because of their denials, innocent suspects elicit highly confrontational interrogations; (d) certain commonly used techniques lead suspects to confess to crimes they did not commit; and (e) police and others cannot distinguish between uncorroborated true and false confessions. It appears that innocence puts innocents at risk, that consideration should be given to reforming current practices, and that a policy of videotaping interrogations is a necessary means of protection.