We study the ability of banks and merchants to influence the consumer's payment instrument choice. Consumers participate in payment card networks to insure themselves against three types of shocks| income, theft, and their merchant match. Merchants choose which payment instruments to accept...

In this thesis the model of a payment card network is constructed to explore the impact of downstream market characteristics (i.e., the market where merchants and consumers interact) on the merchant and the interchange fee, thereby extending the literature’s observations of payment systems. To...

In this article, we survey the recent theoretical literature on payment cards and study their implications for public policy. Payment card networks have faced regulatory scrutiny in several countries regarding the setting of various fees including interchange fees fees paid by the merchant's...

In this thesis the model of a payment card network is constructed to explore the impact of downstream market characteristics (i.e., the market where merchants and consumers interact) on the merchant and the interchange fee, thereby extending the literature’s observations of payment systems. To...

Two-sided market theory predicts that platforms may subsidize the participation of one type of agent by extracting surplus from another type to internalize indirect network externalities. However, few empirical studies exist to evaluate the impact of government intervention in these markets. We...

We study the effect of government encouraged or mandated interchange fee ceilings on consumer and merchant adoption and usage of payment cards in an economy where card acceptance is far from complete. We believe that we are the first to use bank-level data to study the impact of interchange fee...

This thesis strives to offer new insights in two main areas. First, in the well-researched domain of payment cards chapters 2 and 3 investigate an aspect that has hitherto been scantly examined, namely, the fact that merchant usage fees differ substantially among merchant sectors. Additionally,...

We study the effect of government encouraged or mandated interchange fee ceilings on consumer and merchant adoption and usage of payment cards in an economy where card acceptance is far from complete. We believe that we are the first to use bank-level data to study the impact of interchange fee...

Microfinance can be an important tool for fighting global poverty by increasing access to loans and possibly lowering interest rates through microlending. However, the dominant mechanism used by online microfinance platforms, in which intermediaries administer loans, has profound implications...

Payment card networks, such as Visa, require merchants' banks to pay substantial 'interchange' fees to cardholders' banks, on a per transaction basis. This paper shows that a network's profit-maximizing fee induces an inefficient price structure, over-subsidizing card usage and over-taxing...