This paper investigates whether the services of the Federal Reserve System improved the efficiency of the system in the United States for collecting checks relative to the efficiency of the system used by banks just prior to the formation of the Federal Reserve. There are two types of evidence...

This paper examines the technical efficiency of U.S. Federal Reserve check processing offices over 1980–2003. We extend results from Park et al. (2000) and Daouia and Simar (2007) to develop an unconditional, hyperbolic, a-quantile estimator of efficiency. Our new estimator is fully...

Approximately 42 billion checks were written and collected in the United States in 2000. The vast majority of noncash transactions continue to be settled with paper checks, which despite gains in efficiency and speed, still require costly and time-consuming sorting and transportation. An...

The Monetary Control Act of 1980 requires the Federal Reserve to charge customers for financial services, with the intent of improving the efficiency with which Fed offices deliver those services. Prior studies found little improvement in the efficiency of Fed check processing operations after...

The authors construct and simulate a model of check exchange to examine the incentives a bank (or a bank clearinghouse) has to engage in practices that limit access to its payment facilities, in particular delaying the availability of check payment. The potentially disadvantaged bank has the...

Financial institutions' use of Check 21 continues to grow rapidly. In 2006, the Atlanta Fed processed 10 times as many Check 21 transactions as it did in 2005, and the trend is expected to accelerate.