IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/iecrev/v62y2021i4p1569-1598.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Economics Of Savings Groups

Author

Listed:
  • Alfredo Burlando
  • Andrea Canidio
  • Rebekah Selby

Abstract

Millions of households worldwide rely on savings groups (SGs) to satisfy their financial needs, yet important gaps remain in our understanding of this novel financial institution. We show theoretically that, within an SG, the supply of funds could fall short or be in excess of its demand. Then, we use week‐by‐week records from 46 Ugandan SGs to show that most groups do not generate sufficient loanable funds. We conclude by proposing three interventions that, in light of our model, should ease credit rationing and improve the welfare of SG members: requiring SG members to publicly state their savings and borrowing goals, encouraging early savings, and linking SGs with formal financial institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfredo Burlando & Andrea Canidio & Rebekah Selby, 2021. "The Economics Of Savings Groups," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1569-1598, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:62:y:2021:i:4:p:1569-1598
    DOI: 10.1111/iere.12526
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/iere.12526
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/iere.12526?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman, 2007. "Beauty Is a Beast, Frog Is a Prince: Assortative Matching with Nontransferabilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1073-1102, July.
    2. Flatnes, Jon Einar & Carter, Michael R., 2019. "A little skin in the game: Reducing moral hazard in joint liability lending through a mandatory collateral requirement," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 199-214.
    3. Patrick Legros & Andrew Newman, 2007. "Beauty is a beast, frog is a prince :assortative matching in a nontransferable world," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7022, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    4. Burlando, Alfredo & Canidio, Andrea, 2017. "Does group inclusion hurt financial inclusion? Evidence from ultra-poor members of Ugandan savings groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 24-48.
    5. Lori Beaman & Dean Karlan & Bram Thuysbaert, 2014. "Saving for a (not so) Rainy Day: A Ramdomized Evaluation of Savings Groups in Mali," Working Papers 1043, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    6. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Timothy Besley & Timothy W. Guinnane, 1994. "Thy Neighbor's Keeper: The Design of a Credit Cooperative with Theory and a Test," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 491-515.
    7. Özgür Kıbrıs, 2003. "Constrained allocation problems with single-peaked preferences: An axiomatic analysis," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 20(3), pages 353-362, June.
    8. Cassidy, Rachel & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2020. "Banker my neighbour: Matching and financial intermediation in savings groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    9. Erika Deserranno & Miri Stryjan & Munshi Sulaiman, 2019. "Leader Selection and Service Delivery in Community Groups: Experimental Evidence from Uganda," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(4), pages 240-267, October.
    10. Alfredo Burlando & Andrea Canidio, 2016. "The Allocation of Capital in Rural Credit Markets," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 1381-1395, November.
    11. le Polain, Maïté & Sterck, Olivier & Nyssens, Marthe, 2018. "Interest Rates in Savings Groups: Thrift or Threat?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 162-172.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cassidy, Rachel & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2020. "Banker my neighbour: Matching and financial intermediation in savings groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Richard Sebaggala & Roy Mersland & Bert D'espallier, 2024. "Melting pot versus salad bowl: Exploring the effect of composition diversity on saving groups' performance," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2024 09, Stata Users Group.
    3. Armande Mahabi Nabami & Anaëlle Petre & Roy Mersland, 2024. "Impact of climate change training intervention in savings groups," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 2047-2062, May.

    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. Cassidy, Rachel & Fafchamps, Marcel, 2020. "Banker my neighbour: Matching and financial intermediation in savings groups," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    2. Armande Mahabi Nabami & Anaëlle Petre & Roy Mersland, 2024. "Impact of climate change training intervention in savings groups," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(4), pages 2047-2062, May.
    3. Bhaskar, Venkataraman, 2015. "The Demographic Transition and the Position of Women: A Marriage Market Perspective," CEPR Discussion Papers 10619, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Chen, Natalie & Conconi, Paola & Perroni, Carlo, 2013. "Multi-trait matching and gender differentials in intergenerational mobility," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 292-296.
    5. Chade, Hector & Swinkels, Jeroen, 2020. "The moral hazard problem with high stakes," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    6. Han, Seungjin & Yamaguchi, Shintaro, 2015. "Compensating wage differentials in stable job matching equilibrium," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 36-45.
    7. Ilse Lindenlaub & Fabien Postel-Vinay, 2023. "Multidimensional Sorting under Random Search," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(12), pages 3497-3539.
    8. Aoyagi, Masaki & Yoo, Seung Han, 2022. "Matching strategic agents on a two-sided platform," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 271-296.
    9. Andrew F. Newman & Patrick Legros, 2011. "Incomplete Contracts and Industrial Organization: A Survey," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series WP2011-036, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    10. Xiao Yu Wang, 2014. "Risk Sorting, Portfolio Choice, and Endogenous Informal Insurance," NBER Working Papers 20429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Bandyopadhyay, Siddhartha & Cabrales, Antonio, 2023. "Pricing group membership," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 114-121.
    12. Aristidis K. Nikoloulopoulos & Peter G. Moffatt, 2019. "Coupling Couples With Copulas: Analysis Of Assortative Matching On Risk Attitude," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 654-666, January.
    13. Sperisen, Benjamin & Wiseman, Thomas, 2020. "Too good to fire: Non-assortative matching to play a dynamic game," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 491-511.
    14. Macho-Stadler, Inés & Pérez-Castrillo, David & Quérou, Nicolas, 2021. "Goal-oriented agents in a market," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    15. Laurens Cherchye & Thomas Demuynck & Bram De Rock & Frederic Vermeulen, 2017. "Household Consumption When the Marriage Is Stable," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(6), pages 1507-1534, June.
    16. Paula A. Calvo & Ilse Lindenlaub & Ana Reynoso, 2021. "Marriage Market and Labor Market Sorting," NBER Working Papers 28883, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Franco, April Mitchell & Mitchell, Matthew & Vereshchagina, Galina, 2011. "Incentives and the structure of teams," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 146(6), pages 2307-2332.
    18. Chris Bidner, 2014. "A spillover-based theory of credentialism," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1387-1425, November.
    19. Jaramillo, Fernando & Kempf, Hubert & Moizeau, Fabien, 2015. "Heterogeneity and the formation of risk-sharing coalitions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 79-96.
    20. Pietro Garibaldi & Espen Moen & Dag-Einar Sommervoll, 2016. "Competitive On-the-job Search," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 88-107, January.

    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:wly:iecrev:v:62:y:2021:i:4:p:1569-1598. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.