We study e-commerce across 47 economies and 26 industries during the COVID-19 pandemic using aggregated and anonymized transaction-level data from Mastercard, scaled to represent total consumer spending. The share of online transactions in total consumption increased more in economies with...

Modern technology provides the basis of an efficient low-cost electronic payments as an alternative to the current system where fiat money is the medium of exchange. This paper explores possible macro-economic implication, showing how such a financial system might enhance government's ability to...

Retailers are increasingly selling goods and services via subscriptions instead of spot markets. In this paper, we study one benefit to the retailer of selling subscriptions: the possibility that - presumably because of inattention or inertia - consumers continue to pay for subscriptions after...

We run a field experiment and a survey experiment to study an active choice nudge. Our nudge is designed to reduce the anchoring of credit card payments to the minimum payment. In our field experiment, the nudge reduces enrollment in Autopaying the minimum from 36.9% to 9.6%. However, the nudge...

Using an administrative payroll dataset for 2.6 million retail workers, we find that the staggered rollout of a major e-commerce firm's fulfillment centers reduces traditional retail workers' income in geographically proximate counties by 2.4%. Wages of hourly workers, especially part-time...

This paper estimates the magnitude and distribution of surplus from the knowledge worker gig economy using data from an online labor market. Labor demand elasticities determine workers' wages, and buyers' past market experience shapes both their job posting frequency and hiring rates. We find...

In Gathergood et al. (2019), we studied credit card repayments using linked data on multiple cards from the United Kingdom. We showed that individuals did not allocate payments to the higher interest rate card, which would minimize the cost of borrowing, but instead made repayments according to...

We present a new approach for estimating private equity returns using secondary market prices for entrepreneurial business credit card securitizations. We show that the market requires a significantly higher premium for entrepreneurial credit risk than for household credit risk. Entrepreneurial...

How do macroeconomic expectations affect consumer decisions? We examine this question using a natural field experiment with 2,872 credit card customers from a large commercial bank. We conduct a survey to measure consumer expectations about future inflation and the nominal exchange rate and...

We analyze a national sample of Americans with respect to their debt literacy, financial experiences, and their judgments about the extent of their indebtedness. Debt literacy is measured by questions testing knowledge of fundamental concepts related to debt and by self-assessed financial...