An Algorithmic Introduction to Savings Circles

Abstract

Rotating savings and credit associations (roscas) are informal financial organizations common in settings where communities have reduced access to formal financial institutions. In a rosca, a fixed group of participants regularly contribute sums of money to a pot. This pot is then allocated periodically using lottery, aftermarket, or auction mechanisms. Roscas are empirically well-studied in economics. They are, however, challenging to study theoretically due to their dynamic nature. Typical economic analyses of roscas stop at coarse ordinal welfare comparisons to other credit allocation mechanisms, leaving much of roscas' ubiquity unexplained. In this work, we take an algorithmic perspective on the study of roscas. Building on techniques from the price of anarchy literature, we present worst-case welfare approximation guarantees. We further experimentally compare the welfare of outcomes as key features of the environment vary. These cardinal welfare analyses further rationalize the prevalence of roscas. We conclude by discussing several other promising avenues.

Publisher

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

Publication Date

6-28-2022

Publication Title

AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Department

Computer Science

Document Type

Other

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v36i5.20400

Notes

AAAI-22 co-located with the Thirty-Fourth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI-22) and the Twelfth AAAI Symposium on Educational Advances in Artificial Intelligence (EAAI-22).

Keywords

Game theory and economic paradigms (GTEP)

Language

English

Format

text

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