During the last decade, debit card transactions grew rapidly in most advanced countries. While check usage declined and has almost disappeared in some countries, the stock of currency in circulation has not declined as fast. We use panel estimation techniques to analyze the change in...

We suggest a subtle, yet far-reaching, tension in the objectives specified by the Monetary Control Act of 1980 (MCA) for the Federal Reserve's role in providing retail payment services, such as check processing. Specifically, we argue that the requirement of an overall cost-revenue match,...

Credit cards provide benefits to consumers and merchants not provided by other payment instruments as evidenced by their explosive growth in the number and value of transactions over the last 20 years. Recently, credit card networks have come under scrutiny from regulators and antitrust...

Over the last decade, consumers have tripled their use of credit cards as more merchants have increased their acceptance of them. This increase suggests that incentives in today's marketplace favor greater credit card use by consumers and acceptance by merchants. In this paper, we study the set...

The costs and benefits to payment system participants can differ depending on which payment mechanism is used. The authors specifically explore the costs and benefits of prepaid card applications versus other payment instruments, such as cash, checks, and debit cards, for certain payment...

This paper proposes a framework for comovements of asset prices with seemingly unrelated fundamentals, as an outcome of optimal portfolio strategies by fund managers. In emerging markets, dedicated managers outperforming a benchmark index and global managers maximizing absolute returns lead to...

During the last decade, U.S. consumers tripled their use of credit cards as more merchants have increased their acceptance of them. This increase suggests that incentives in today's marketplace favor greater credit card use by consumers and acceptance by merchants. In this paper, we study the...

This paper investigates the potential for foreign speculators to profit from simultaneously taking short positions in foreign exchange and equity markets under a fixed exchange rate regime, in what has been termed as the quot;double play.quot; Such a strategy is considered when the monetary...

In this paper, we review factors influencing the migration from checks to electronic payment alternatives in the United States. We identify underlying (dis)incentives for the various payment system participants to migrate to electronic payments. Such analysis sheds light on why checks are used...

In this article, we construct a model to study competing payment networks, where networks offer differentiated products in terms of benefits to consumers and merchants. We study market equilibria for a variety of market structures: duopolistic competition and cartel, symmetric and asymmetric...