U.S. commercial banks are increasingly using credit scoring models to underwrite small business credits. This paper discusses this technology, evaluates the research findings on the effects of this technology on small business credit availability, and links these findings to a number of research...

A general econometric model is developed and used to estimate the share of cash in consumer point-of-sale transactions in Norway over 1980-99. The share of cash fell from 90% during the 1980s to 50% in 1999, primarily due to debit card growth. Additional data from banks, stores, and elsewhere...

This paper demonstrates the importance of using a flexible cost function specification when analyzing economies of scale and estimating the cost effect of banking mergers. The inflexibility of the translog cost function is illustrated and results are compared to more flexible spline and Fourier...