IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/ilewps/52.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

RoSCAs in Egypt: A Banking Institution or a Commitment Device?

Author

Listed:
  • Rabie, Dina

Abstract

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (RoSCAs) is a widely spread informal financial institution in developing countries. This paper examines how access to formal banking (or lack thereof), impatience and self-control are correlated with individuals' decisions to join RoSCAs. The paper employs an incentivized experiment to elicit impatience and a questionnaire to measure bank access, self-control and RoSCA participation among university employees in Cairo (Egypt). Findings indicate that access to formal banking significantly decreases the likelihood of RoSCA participation. In addition, behavioural attitudes partially (self-control but not impatience) correlates with the RoSCA participation decision. Conditional on RoSCA participation, behavioural attitudes towards self-control and impatience are significant correlates of whether an individual is a saver or a borrow in the informal institution.

Suggested Citation

  • Rabie, Dina, 2021. "RoSCAs in Egypt: A Banking Institution or a Commitment Device?," ILE Working Paper Series 52, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ilewps:52
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/241869/1/ile-wp-2021-52.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Besley, Timothy & Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn, 1993. "The Economics of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(4), pages 792-810, September.
    2. Matthias Sutter & Martin G. Kocher & Daniela Glätzle-Rützler & Stefan T. Trautmann, 2013. "Impatience and Uncertainty: Experimental Decisions Predict Adolescents' Field Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(1), pages 510-531, February.
    3. Aurélie Bonein & Laurent Denant-Boèmont, 2015. "Self-control, commitment and peer pressure: a laboratory experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 18(4), pages 543-568, December.
    4. Olivier Dagnelie & Philippe Lemay‐Boucher, 2012. "Rosca Participation in Benin: A Commitment Issue," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(2), pages 235-252, April.
    5. Mohieldin, Mahmoud S & Wright, Peter W, 2000. "Formal and Informal Credit Markets in Egypt," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 657-670, April.
    6. James Andreoni & Charles Sprenger, 2012. "Estimating Time Preferences from Convex Budgets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3333-3356, December.
    7. Ned Augenblick & Muriel Niederle & Charles Sprenger, 2015. "Editor's Choice Working over Time: Dynamic Inconsistency in Real Effort Tasks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1067-1115.
    8. Gugerty, Mary Kay, 2007. "You Can't Save Alone: Commitment in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 251-282, January.
    9. Bouman, F. J. A., 1995. "Rotating and accumulating savings and credit associations: A development perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 371-384, March.
    10. Besley, Timothy & Levenson, Alec R, 1996. "The Role of Informal Finance in Household Capital Accumulation: Evidence from Taiwan," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(434), pages 39-59, January.
    11. Karna Basu, 2011. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Sustainability of Rotational Savings Arrangements," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 143-171, November.
    12. Handa, Sudhanshu & Kirton, Claremont, 1999. "The economics of rotating savings and credit associations: evidence from the Jamaican 'Partner'," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 173-194, October.
    13. Siwan Anderson & Jean-Marie Baland, 2002. "The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 963-995.
    14. Mary Kay Gugerty, 2007. "You Can't Save Alone: Commitment in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Kenya," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55, pages 251-282.
    15. Charles A. Holt & Susan K. Laury, 2002. "Risk Aversion and Incentive Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1644-1655, December.
    16. Baland, Jean-Marie & Guirkinger, Catherine & Hartwig, Renate, 2019. "Now or later? The allocation of the pot and the insurance motive in fixed roscas," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 1-11.
    17. Nava Ashraf & Dean Karlan & Wesley Yin, 2006. "Tying Odysseus to the Mast: Evidence From a Commitment Savings Product in the Philippines," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 635-672.
    18. Siwan Anderson & Jean-Marie Baland, 2002. "The Economics of Roscas and Intrahousehold Resource Allocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 963-995.
    19. Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1990. "Peer Monitoring and Credit Markets," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 4(3), pages 351-366, September.
    20. Aurélie Bonein & Laurent Denant-Boemont, 2015. "Self-control, commitment and peer pressure: a laboratory experiment," Post-Print hal-02387279, HAL.
    21. Anderson, Siwan & Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove, 2009. "Enforcement in informal saving groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 14-23, September.
    22. Olivier Dagnelie & Philippe Lemay-Boucher, 2012. "Rosca Participation in Benin: A Commitment Issue," Post-Print hal-02410573, HAL.
    23. Kimuyu, Peter Kiko, 1999. "Rotating Saving and Credit Associations in Rural East Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1299-1308, July.
    24. Ambec, Stefan & Treich, Nicolas, 2007. "Roscas as financial agreements to cope with self-control problems," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 120-137, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karna Basu, 2011. "Hyperbolic Discounting and the Sustainability of Rotational Savings Arrangements," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 143-171, November.
    2. AMANKWAH, ERNEST & Gockel, Fritz Augustine & Osei-Assibey, Eric, 2019. "Pareto Superior dimension of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) in Ghana: Evidence from Asunafo North Municipality of Ghana," MPRA Paper 96308, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Olivier Dagnelie & Philippe Lemay‐Boucher, 2012. "Rosca Participation in Benin: A Commitment Issue," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(2), pages 235-252, April.
    4. Pushkar Maitra & Ray Miller & Ashish Sedai, 2022. "Household Welfare Effects of ROSCAs," Monash Economics Working Papers 2022-14, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    5. Baland, Jean-Marie & Guirkinger, Catherine & Hartwig, Renate, 2019. "Now or later? The allocation of the pot and the insurance motive in fixed roscas," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 1-11.
    6. Olivier Dagnelie & Philippe LeMay-Boucher, 2007. "ROSCA Participation in Benin: A Commitment Issue," CERT Discussion Papers 0708, Centre for Economic Reform and Transformation, Heriot Watt University.
    7. Adnan Shoaib & Muhammad Ayub Siddiqui, 2020. "Why do people participate in ROSCA saving schemes? Findings from a qualitative empirical study," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 47(2), pages 177-189, June.
    8. Pascaline Dupas & Jonathan Robinson, 2013. "Why Don't the Poor Save More? Evidence from Health Savings Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1138-1171, June.
    9. Ha van Dung, 2014. "Short-term precaution, insurance and saving mechanisms in rural Vietnam," Working Papers CIE 82, Paderborn University, CIE Center for International Economics.
    10. Francesco Reito & Salvatore Spagano, 2014. "A Comparison between Formal and Informal Mutual-credit Arrangements," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 52(2), pages 179-201, June.
    11. Kyle McNabb & Philippe LeMay-Boucher & Jacopo Bonan, 2019. "Enforcement Problems in ROSCAs: Evidence from Benin," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(5), pages 1389-1415, December.
    12. Eun Jin Ryu & Aya Suzuki, 2021. "ROSCAS as Insurance: Comparing Formal and Informal Methods of Saving among the Unskilled Workers in the Ethiopian Cut‐Flower Industry," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 59(3), pages 243-274, September.
    13. Maitra, Pushkar & Miller, Ray & Sedai, Ashish, 2023. "Household welfare effects of ROSCAs," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    14. Anett John, 2020. "When Commitment Fails: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 503-529, February.
    15. A. Lasagni & E. Lollo, 2011. "Participation in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations in Indonesia: New Empirical Evidence on Social Capital," Economics Department Working Papers 2011-EP05, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    16. T Le Cotty & E Maître d’Hôtel & R Soubeyran & J Subervie, 2019. "Inventory Credit as a Commitment Device to Save Grain Until the Hunger Season," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1115-1139.
    17. Buehren, Niklas, 2011. "Allocating Cash Savings and the Role of Information: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Uganda," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 16, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    18. Basu, Karna, 2014. "Commitment savings in informal banking markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 97-111.
    19. Anderson, Siwan & Baland, Jean-Marie & Moene, Karl Ove, 2009. "Enforcement in informal saving groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 14-23, September.
    20. Ambec, Stefan & Treich, Nicolas, 2007. "Roscas as financial agreements to cope with self-control problems," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 120-137, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    RoSCAs; RoSCA rank; informal banking; impatience; self-control;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:ilewps:52. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/irhamde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.