IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedpcd/06-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Alternative financial vehicles: rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs)

Author

Listed:
  • Christy Chung Hevener

Abstract

This paper describes how ROSCAs work and discusses the benefits that accrue to ROSCA participants and some of the costs they incur. Of particular interest is the introduction of a partial data set collected from a local ROSCA, which offers a glimpse of the capital costs ROSCA participants face and which could ultimately be contrasted with the capital costs faced by borrowers at mainstream financial institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Christy Chung Hevener, 2006. "Alternative financial vehicles: rotating savings and credit associations (ROSCAs)," Community Affairs Discussion Paper 06-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpcd:06-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/community-development/discussion-papers/discussionpaper-ROSCAs.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Philip Bond & Paul Huck & Sherrie L. W. Rhine & Robert M. Townsend, 1999. "Small business finance in two Chicago minority neighborhoods," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 23(Q II), pages 46-62.
    4. Philippe Callier, 1990. "Informal Finance: The Rotating Saving and Credit Association — An Interpretation," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(2), pages 273-276, May.
    5. Levenson, Alec R. & Besley, Timothy, 1996. "The anatomy of an informal financial market: Rosca participation in Taiwan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 45-68, October.
    6. repec:bla:kyklos:v:43:y:1990:i:2:p:273-76 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Ashok Rai & Stefan Klonner, 2007. "Adverse Selection in Credit Markets: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," Center for Development Economics 2007-01, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    8. Timothy Besley & Stephen Coate & Glenn Loury, 1994. "Rotating Savings and Credit Associations, Credit Markets and Efficiency," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 61(4), pages 701-719.
    9. Balkenhol B. & Gueye EH., 1994. "Tontines and the banking system: is there a case for building linkages?," ILO Working Papers 992997263402676, International Labour Organization.
    10. Ralph Chami and Jeffrey H. Fischer, 1995. "Community Banking, Monitoring, and the Clinton Plan," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 14(3), pages 493-508, Winter.
    11. Stefan Klonner, 2000. "Rotating Savings and Credit Associations as Insurance," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1589, Econometric Society.
    12. repec:ilo:ilowps:299726 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Calomiris, Charles W. & Rajaraman, Indira, 1998. "The role of ROSCAs: lumpy durables or event insurance?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 207-216, June.
    14. Stefan Klonner, 2003. "Rotating Savings and Credit Associations When Participants are Risk Averse," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(3), pages 979-1005, August.
    15. Glenn C. Loury, 1976. "A Dynamic Theory of Racial Income Differences," Discussion Papers 225, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    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. 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.
    4. Klonner, Stefan, 2003. "Buying Fields and Marrying Daughters: An Empirical Analysis of Rosca Auctions in a South Indian Village," Center Discussion Papers 28449, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    5. Stefan Klonner, 2003. "Empirical Analysis of Rosca Auctions in a South Indian Village," Working Papers 854, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. 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).
    7. Abbi Kedir & Richard Disney & Indraneel Dasgupta, 2011. "Why Use Roscas When You Can Use Banks? Theory And Evidence From Ethiopia," Discussion Papers 11/05, University of Nottingham, CREDIT.
    8. Rediet Abebe & Adam Eck & Christian Ikeokwu & Samuel Taggart, 2022. "An Algorithmic Introduction to Savings Circles," Papers 2203.12486, arXiv.org.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. 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.
    13. Ashok Rai & Stefan Klonner, 2007. "Adverse Selection in Credit Markets: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," Department of Economics Working Papers 2007-01, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Czura, Kristina & Klonner, Stefan, 2023. "Financial market responses to a natural disaster: Evidence from credit networks and the Indian Ocean tsunami," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    17. Stefan Klonner, 2000. "Rotating Savings and Credit Associations as Insurance," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1589, Econometric Society.
    18. 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.
    19. Antonieta Castro-Cosío, 2024. "‘Informal’ Financial Practices in the South Bronx: Family, Compadres, and Acquaintances," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 45(2), pages 327-342, June.
    20. N. S. Chiteji, 2002. "Promises kept: enforcement and the role of rotating savings and credit associations in an economy," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(4), pages 393-411.

    More about this item

    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:fip:fedpcd:06-01. 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: Beth Paul (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbphus.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.