This article investigates the degree to which buyers choose to diversify their use of payment methods for in-person purchases. Some buyers use only one payment instrument. Others combine the use of mostly cash, credit, and debit cards, and a few paper checks and prepaid cards. To each survey...

We evaluate the effects of ring-fencing on lending market competition, and thereby on banks' risk-taking as well as taxpayers' risk exposure. We show analytically that strong ring-fencing intensifies lending market competition, reduces bank profits, and increases borrower and consumer surplus...

The authors characterize equilibrium and efficient modes of production by comparing nested (vertical) outsourcing with horizontal outsourcing. Nested outsourcing is found to be inefficient unless the cost of monitoring outsourced production lines increases sharply with the number of...

The author constructs a theoretical model to examine the effects of an inherent conflict of interest between a seller of a house and the real estate broker hired by the seller. The model is then used to calibrate the broker's commission rates that would maximize the seller's expected gain. The...

We evaluate behavior-based price discrimination from an antitrust perspective by focusing on an industry with inherited market dominance. Under horizontal differentiation behavior-based pricing does not by itself lead to persistence of dominance unless the dominant firm is protected by...

We analyze the Markov Perfect Equilibria of an infinite-horizon overlapping generations model with consumer lock-in to compare the performance of history-based and uniform pricing in growing and declining markets. Under history-based pricing, firms charge higher prices to locked-in customers and...