This research was conducted within the Paul Woolley Research Initiative on Capital Market Dysfunctionalities at IDEI, Toulouse. Support from the Europlace Institute of Finance, the European Research Council and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche is gratefully aknowledged. Many thanks to...

Antitrust authorities often argue that merchants cannot reasonably turn down payment cards and therefore are forced to accept unacceptably high merchant discounts. The paper attempts to shed light on this must-take cards view from two angles. First, the paper gives some operational content to...