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 paper investigates the reasons why person-to-person electronic funds transfers are still not very common in the United States compared with practices in many other countries. The paper also describes recent enhancements to online and mobile banking that provide account holders with low-cost...

Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or "cash") users because merchants generally do not set differential prices for card users to recoup the costs of fees and rewards. On average, each cash-using household pays $149 to...

This paper surveys a variety of topics related to network economics. Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and...

We investigate how costly acquisition and exchange of customer-specific information affects industry profit and consumer welfare. Consumers differ in their preferences for competing brands and in their switching costs between brands. Brand-producing firms use their acquired knowledge of...