In 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the credit card networks American Express, MasterCard, and Visa for alleged antitrust violations. We evaluate the extent to which the recently proposed settlement between the DOJ and Visa and MasterCard (henceforth, "Proposed...

Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or “cash”) users because merchants generally do not set differential prices for card users to recoup the costs of fees and rewards. On average, each cash-using household pays $151 to...

The Emerging Payments Research Group (EPRG) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston sponsored a new conference, “Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: How and Why Do Consumers Choose Their Payment Methods?” on October 27–28, 2005, at the Boston Fed. The conference brought together a diverse...

This paper summarizes the proceedings of the second Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on July 25–27, 2006. These conferences are unique in featuring the collaboration of two groups of payments experts — the private-sector payments...

This paper summarizes and outlines some interesting issues that arose during a recent workshop on Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Emerging Payments Research Group (EPRG) on July 25, 2008. Topics addressed are the consumer adoption of new...