Debit cards are overtaking credit cards as the most prevalent form of electronic payment at the point of sale, yet the determinants of a ubiquitous consumer choice - "debit or credit?" - have received relatively little scrutiny. Several stylized facts suggest that debit-card use is driven by...

Borrowing decisions affect most households, with large stakes and implications for subfields as varied as macroeconomics and industrial organization. I review theoretical and empirical work on household debt: its prevalence, level, growth, and composition, as well as various measures of consumer...

The intersection of research and policy on consumer credit often has a Goldilocks feel. Some researchers and policymakers posit that consumer credit markets produce too much credit. Other researchers and policymakers posit that markets produce too little credit. I review theories and evidence on...

Policymakers face an increasing number of questions regarding whether markets efficiently choose technological standards. In this essay I survey the economic literature regarding standards, focusing on arguments that markets move between standards either too slowly or too swiftly.

Incompatibility in markets with network effects can either benefit orharm consumers. Incompatibility reduces consumers' ability to "mixand match" components offered by different sellers, but can also beassociated with changes in product attributes that might benefitconsumers. In this paper, we...

Incompatibility in market with network effects reduces consumers? ability to ?mix and match? components offered by different sellers, but can also spur changes in product attributes that might beneÞt consumers. In this paper, we estimate the effects of incompatibility on consumers in a classic...

Incompatibility in markets with indirect network expects can affect prices if consumers value mix and match combinations of complementary network components. In this paper, we exam- ine the effects of incompatibility using data from a classic market with indirect network effects: Automated...