Kast, FelipeMeier, StephanPomeranz, Dina Deborah2013-10-092012Kast, Felipe, Stephan Meier, and Dina Pomeranz. "Under-Savers Anonymous: Evidence on Self-Help Groups and Peer Pressure as a Savings Commitment Device." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 12-060, January 2012. (Revised June 2014. Featured by Time, Business Insider, Freakonomics, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! Finance, and others.)http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11158277We test the effectiveness of self-help peer groups as a commitment device for precautionary savings, through two randomized field experiments among 2,687 Chilean micro-entrepreneurs. The first experiment finds that self-help peer groups are a powerful tool to increase savings (the number of deposits grows 3.7-fold and the average savings balance almost doubles). In contrast, a more classical measure, a substantially increased interest rate, has no effect for most participants. A second experiment tests an alternative delivery mechanism and shows that effects of similar size can be achieved by holding people accountable through feedback text messages, without meetings or peer pressure.en-USResearch Paper or Report2013-10-03Dina Pomeranz2013-10-09