Search Results
Journal Article
Online banking comes of age
Journal Article
Regulating debit cards: the case of ad valorem fees
Debit cards have become an indispensable part of the U.S. payments system, accounting for more than a third of consumer payments at point of sale. With this development has come controversy: Card networks charge merchants fees that merchants believe are too high. And most of the fees are ad valorem that is, based on transaction value rather than fixed fees per transaction. ; Given that debit cards incur a fixed cost per transaction, why do networks charge ad valorem fees? How do ad valorem fees affect payment market participants, including consumers, merchants, and card networks? And should ...
Journal Article
Consumer Payment Choice in the Fifth District: Learning from a Retail Chain
This paper studies payment variation across locations and time using five years of transactions data from a large discount retail chain with hundreds of stores across the Fifth District. The results show that the median transaction size, demographics, education levels, and state fixed effects are the top factors in explaining cross-location payment variation in the sample. We also identify interesting time patterns of payment variation, particularly the longer-term decline in the cash share of transactions largely replaced by debit.
Journal Article
The Impact of the Durbin Amendment on Merchants: A Survey Study
The Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act introduced a regulation on debit card interchange fees, which went into effect in October 2011. Based on a merchant survey conducted two years after the regulation, we investigate the impact of the regulation on merchants' costs of accepting debit cards. We also examine merchants' reactions to the regulation in terms of changing prices and debit card restrictions.
Working Paper
Spin-offs: theory and evidence from the early U.S. automobile industry
We develop "passive learning" model of firm entry by spin-off : firm employees leave their employer and create a new firm when (a) they learn they are good entrepreneurs (type I spin-offs) or (b) they learn their employer's prospects are bad (type II spin-offs). Our theory predicts a high correlation between spin-offs and parent exit, especially when the parent is a low-productivity firm. This correlation may correspond to two types of causality: spin-off causes firm exit (type I spin-offs) and firm exit causes spin-offs (type II spin-offs). We test and confirm this and other model ...
Working Paper
The economics of two-sided payment card markets: pricing, adoption and usage
This paper provides a new theory for two-sided payment card markets by positing better microfoundations. Adopting payment cards by consumers and merchants requires a fixed cost, but yields lower marginal costs of making payments. Considering this together with the heterogeneity of consumer income and merchant size, our theory derives card adoption and usage pattern consistent with cross-section and time-series evidence. Our analyses also help explain the observed card pricing pattern, particularly the rising merchant (interchange) fees over time. This is because a private card network, ...
Working Paper
Technological innovation and market turbulence: the dot-com experience
This paper explains market turbulence, such as the recent dotcom boom/bust cycle, as equilibrium industry dynamics triggered by technology innovation. When a major technology innovation arrives, a wave of new firms enter the market implementing the innovation for profits. However, if the innovation complements existing technology, some new entrants will later be forced out as more and more incumbent firms succeed in adopting the innovation. It is shown that the diffusion of Internet technology among traditional brick-and-mortar firms is indeed the driving force behind the rise and fall of ...
Briefing
Why Do Debit Card Networks Charge Percentage Fees?
Why do debit card networks base their fees on a percentage of transaction amounts when the marginal cost of executing a transaction does not vary by amount? Research suggests that this type of fee structure, a linear ad valorem fee, maximizes profits for card networks by allowing price discrimination. Also, because percentage fees make card usage more economical for lower-value transactions, such a fee structure tends to increase social welfare.
Working Paper
Innovation, Deregulation, and the Life Cycle of a Financial Service Industry
This paper examines innovation, deregulation, and fi rm dynamics over the life cycle of the U.S. ATM and debit card industry. In doing so, we construct a dynamic equilibrium model to study how a major product innovation (introducing the new debit card function) interacted with banking deregulation drove the industry shakeout. Calibrating the model to a novel data set on ATM network entry,exit, size, and product offerings shows that our theory fits the quantitative pattern of the industry well. The model also allows us to conduct counterfactual analyses to evaluate the respective roles that ...