‘The Downside to Downsizing’

The downside to lymphocytes

A trip down the vaginal tract teaches the intestinal cells of newborn mice to ignore their germy cohabitants, according to Lotz and colleagues on page 973. Gut cells calmly cohabitate with millions of intestinal bacteria. To avoid constant inflammation, these cells must learn to ignore or tolerate the immune-activating structures (such as lipopoly-saccharide, or LPS) that protrude from the surf...

The Downside of Defaults

The Downside of Deadlines

Deadlines are ubiquitous institutions in government decision making, constraining both agencies and courts. Yet these institutions are almost entirely ignored in formal models in institutional political science. We analyze deadlines as exogenously imposed institutions upon a government decision maker, as a means of elected officials exercising control over the the duration of administrative dec...

Downsizing the hospital nursing workforce.

TH E H O SP I T AL I N D U STR Y I N the United States is undergoing widespread reorganization that includes restructuring of the workforce. Surveys reveal that nurses now working in hospitals have serious concerns about the impact of such staffing changes on quality of care and the safety of patients. Media coverage of changes taking place in hospitals and hospital care echoes nurses’ warnings...

Corporate Downsizing to Rebuild Team Spirit

We propose a new theory for downsizing, based on strategic reasons, rather than technological ones. A crisis may lead to a decrease in the willingness to cooperate in an organization, and therefore to a bad equilibrium. A consensual downsizing episode may signal credibly that survivors are willing to cooperate, and thus, it may be optimal and efficiency-enhancing, as the empirical evidence sugg...