Gift-giving, Quasi-Credit and Reciprocity

Jonathan Thomas and Timothy Worrall

Development and Comp Systems from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The fluctuations in incomes inherent in rural communities can be attenuated by reciprocal assistance. A model of reciprocal assistance based upon rational action and voluntary participation is presented. Individuals provide assistance only if the costs of so doing are outweighed by the benefits from expected future reciprocation. A distinction is made between general reciprocity where the counter obligation is expected but not certain and balanced reciprocity where there is a firm counter obligation. This firm counter obligation is reflected by including a loan or quasi-credit element in any assistance. It is shown how this can increase the assistance given and it may explain the widespread use of quasi-credit in rural comunitities. Moreover it is shown that for a range of parameter values consistent with evidence from three villages in southern India, a simple scheme of gift-giving and quasi-credit can do almost as well as theoretically better but more complicated schemes.

Keywords: implicit contract; gift giving; reciprocity; quasi-credit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D89 O16 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2000-06-13
Note: Type of Document - Acrobat PDF; prepared on IBM PC; pages: 37 ; figures: included. pdf file, prepared from sci word
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/dev/papers/0004/0004005.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gift-giving, Quasi-credit and Reciprocity (2002)
Working Paper: Gift-Giving, Quasi-Credit and Reciprocity (2002)
Working Paper: Gift-giving, Quasi-Credit and Reciprocity (2000)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpdc:0004005

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Development and Comp Systems from University Library of Munich, Germany
Bibliographic data for series maintained by EconWPA ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).