Antitrust and regulatory concerns swirl around the payment cards industry, for understandable reasons: It is not atomistic; it has network characteristics; it involves two-sided markets; and its two prominent members - Visa and MasterCard - are network joint ventures of the banks that issue cards...

We extend the results of our article, "Access and Interconnection Pricing? How Efficient Is the "Efficient Component Pricing Rule?," Antitrust Bulletin (1995). In the presence of a monopolized essential input, we show that application of the Efficient Component Pricing Rule ("ECPR") in pricing...

Quality has been a neglected area of public utility regulation analysis. Many authors are uneasy about the quality levels that result from regulation but they frequently can only conclude that "it is uncertain whether consumers found this quality to be worth the price they paid."

This paper examines two forces that may soon increase competition in the U.S. secondary conforming mortgage market: (1) the Federal Home Loan Bank mortgage purchase programs, and (2) the adoption of revised risk-based capital requirements for large U.S. banks (Basel II). We argue that this...