Optimal group size in a highly social mammal

Optimal group size in a highly social mammal.

Group size is an important trait of social animals, affecting how individuals allocate time and use space, and influencing both an individual's fitness and the collective, cooperative behaviors of the group as a whole. Here we tested predictions motivated by the ecological constraints model of group size, examining the effects of group size on ranging patterns and adult female glucocorticoid (s...

Social Group Size

Blood thicker than water: kinship, disease prevalence and group size drive divergent patterns of infection risk in a social mammal

The importance of social- and kin-structuring of populations for the transmission of wildlife disease is widely assumed but poorly described. Social structure can help dilute risks of transmission for group members, and is relatively easy to measure, but kin-association represents a further level of population sub-structure that is harder to measure, particularly when association behaviours hap...

Optimal Group Size in Joint Liability Contracts

We develop a model of repeated microcredit lending to study how group size affects optimal group-lending contracts with joint liability. In the setting being studied, a benevolent lender provides microcredit to a group of borrowers to invest in projects. The outcome of each risky project is not observable by the lender; therefore, if some of the borrowers default on their loan repayments, the l...

The optimal group size in microcredit contracts

We analyze a model of a repeated microcredit lending and study how group size affects the optimal group lending contracts with joint liability. The story is that one benevolent lender gives microcredit to a group of n borrowers to be invested on n projects. The outcome of each risky project is not observable by the lender. Therefore in case some of the borrowers default on their loan repayments...