This paper examines how and why individuals develop and maintain local-level financial savings
organizations known as rotating savings and credit organizations, or roscas. Economic theories suggest that
individuals join roscas to finance the purchase of a lumpy durable good, as a response to intra-household
conflict over savings, or to provide insurance. The paper proposes an alternative hypothesis for rosca
participation: saving requires self-discipline, and roscas provide a collective mechanism for individual selfcontrol
in the presence of time-inconsistent preferences and in the absence of alternative commitment
technologies. As many rosca participants put it: ?you can’t save alone.?