The Price of Anarchy in ROSCAS with Risk Averse Agents

Abstract

Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (Roscas) are a widely documented informal financial organization that is often used in low-income communities with limited funding sources. Roscas have been shown to serve as a tool for economic empowerment and a way of mitigating adverse shocks to income for vulnerable communities. In this paper, I describe my contributions to a research project in which we study the allocative efficiency of different Rosca structures and formats in the presence of risk-averse agents.