WHY PEOPLE PARTICIPATE ROSCA? NEW EVIDENCES FROM TURKEY

Abstract

Rosca which is popular among the communities that cannot make use of the formal financial markets is preferably used more by the castes having limited or no regular income level.  According to the results of the observations about Turkey–which is evaluated within the category of developing countries –it is found that roscas are used widely by individuals from a wide range of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Moreover, the literature review about the reasons of attending a rosca cannot explain properly this wide commitment rates in Turkey. According to the results obtained by the questionnaire developed for this research it is opposed that there can be new reasons of participating rosca such as avoiding from interest and socializing. Moreover by the parametric tests conducted it is found that the reasons of participating a rosca are affected by the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of individuals.

Keywords

• Roscas,informal financial markets,formal financial markets,income level,interest aversion