Kast, Felipe. <br/><br/>
Under-Savers Anonymous:  Evidence on Self-Help Groups and Peer Pressure as a Savings Commitment Device / 
Felipe Kast, Stephan Meier, Dina Pomeranz. 
 - Cambridge, Mass.  National Bureau of Economic Research  2012. 
 - 1 online resource:  illustrations (black and white); 
 - NBER working paper series  no. w18417 .
 - Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)  no. w18417. .
<br/><br/> September 2012. 
<br/><br/> We test the effectiveness of self-help peer groups as a commitment device for precautionary savings, through two randomized field experiments among 2,687 microentrepreneurs in Chile. The first experiment finds that self-help peer groups are a powerful tool to increase savings (the number of deposits grows 3.5-fold and the average savings balance almost doubles). Conversely, a substantially higher interest rate has no effect on most participants. A second experiment tests an alternative delivery mechanism and shows that effects of a similar size can be achieved by holding people accountable through feedback text messages, without any meetings or peer pressure. 
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