We estimate the degree of "stickiness" in aggregate consumption growth (sometimes interpreted as reflecting consumption habits) for thirteen advanced economies. We find that, after controlling for measurement error, consumption growth has a high degree of autocorrelation, with a stickiness...

We develop a search-matching model, where firms search for customers (e.g. in form of advertising). Firms use long-term contracts and bargain over prices, resulting in a price mark up above marginal cost, which is procyclical and depends on firms' relative bargaining power. Product market...

While consumption habits have been utilised as a means of generating a hump shaped output response to monetary policy shocks in sticky-price New Keynesian economies, there is relatively little analysis of the impact of habits (particularly, external habits) on optimal policy. In this paper we...

We consider debit and credit card networks. Our contribution is to introduce the role of consumer credit into these payment networks, and to assess the way this affects competition and equilibrium fees. We analyze a situation in which overdrafts are associated with current accounts and debit...

Using detailed micro-data, this paper documents that households with lower income risk (and higher income levels) exhibit a higher Marginal Propensity to Consume (MPC) in response to transitory income shocks, all else being equal. This finding is particularly significant among unconstrained...

The study quantifies stock market and housing market wealth effects on households.non-durable consumption using Italian household panel data (SHIW) of 1989-2002. We found all households react similarly to aggregate housing and stock market gains. We also found statistically and economically...

This paper estimates the wealth effects on consumption in the euro area as a whole. I show that: (i) financial wealth effects are relatively large and statistically significant; (ii) housing wealth effects are virtually nil and not significant; (iii) consumption growth exhibits strong...

This paper adds to the literature on wealth effects on consumption by disentangling financial wealth effects from housing wealth effects for the euro area. We use two macro-datasets for our estimations, one on the aggregate euro area for the period 1980-2006, and one on the individual euro area...

We study the effect of government encouraged or mandated interchange fee ceilings on consumer and merchant adoption and usage of payment cards in an economy where card acceptance is far from complete. We believe that we are the first to use bank-level data to study the impact of interchange fee...

Card issuers have mainly relied on rewards programs as their main strategic driver to increase electronic payments. However, there is scarce evidence on the effectiveness of rewards programs. This paper offers novel evidence on two key issues: i) it measures the impact of rewards programs on the...