Evaluating competing perspectives towards undeclared work: some lessons from Bulgaria

When explaining and tackling the undeclared economy in Central and Eastern Europe, participants have been conventionally viewed as rational economic actors. They engage in undeclared work when the benefits outweigh the costs. Participation is thus deterred by increasing the sanctions and/or probability of being caught. Recently, however, an alternative social actor approach has emerged which views participants as engaging in undeclared work when their norms, values and beliefs (i.e., citizen morale) do not align with the laws and regulations (i.e., state morale). Here, therefore, initiatives to develop greater symmetry between civic and state morale are pursued. To evaluate the validity and effectiveness of these competing explanations and policy approaches, 2,004 face-to-face interviews conducted in Bulgaria in late 2015 are reported. Logit marginal effects regression analysis reveals no association between participation in undeclared work and the perceived level of penalties and risk of detection, but a strong significant association with the level of asymmetry between citizen and state morale; the greater the asymmetry, the higher is the likelihood of participation in undeclared work. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for explaining and tackling undeclared work

Explaining and tackling unregistered employment : evidence from an employers’ survey

When explaining and tackling employers participating in the informal economy, they have been conventionally viewed as rational economic actors who engage when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus their participation is deterred by increasing the sanctions and/or risks of detection. An emergent social actor approach, however, has explained employers as engaging in the informal economy when there is a lack of vertical trust (i.e., their norms, values and beliefs are not in symmetry with the laws and regulations) and horizontal trust (i.e., they believe many others are being non-compliant). The aim of this paper is to evaluate these competing perspectives by reporting a 2015 survey of 450 employers in FYR Macedonia. The finding is that although there is no association between employers using unregistered workers and the perceived level of penalties and risks of detection, there is a strong significant association with both the level of vertical and horizontal trust. Those whose beliefs do not align with the laws and regulations display a significantly greater likelihood of employing unregistered workers, as do those who perceive a larger proportion of the population to be engaged in the informal economy. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed

Social Network Analysis and the Sociology of Economics: Filling a Blind Spot with the Idea of Social Embeddedness

Today, social networks analysis has become a cross-disciplinary subject with applications in diverse fields of social and economic life. Different network designs provide different opportunities to communicate, to receive information and to create different structures of cultural capital. Network analysis explores modes and contents of exchanges between different agents when symbols, emotions or goods and services are exchanged. The message of the article is that social network analysis provides a tool to foster the understanding of social dynamics, which enhances recent debate on a micro-macro gap and on limitations of the cognitive and explanatory potential of economics.

Acanthamoeba and Dictyostelium as Cellular Models for Legionella Infection

Environmental bacteria of the genus Legionella naturally parasitize free-living amoebae. Upon inhalation of bacteria-laden aerosols, the opportunistic pathogens grow intracellularly in alveolar macrophages and can cause a life-threatening pneumonia termed Legionnaires' disease. Intracellular replication in amoebae and macrophages takes place in a unique membrane-bound compartment, the Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV). LCV formation requires the bacterial Icm/Dot type IV secretion system, which translocates literally hundreds of "effector" proteins into host cells, where they modulate crucial cellular processes for the pathogen's benefit. The mechanism of LCV formation appears to be evolutionarily conserved, and therefore, amoebae are not only ecologically significant niches for Legionella spp., but also useful cellular models for eukaryotic phagocytes. In particular, Acanthamoeba castellanii and Dictyostelium discoideum emerged over the last years as versatile and powerful models. Using genetic, biochemical and cell biological approaches, molecular interactions between amoebae and Legionella pneumophila have recently been investigated in detail with a focus on the role of phosphoinositide lipids, small and large GTPases, autophagy components and the retromer complex, as well as on bacterial effectors targeting these host factors