Though checks' popularity is now waning in favor of electronic payments, checks were, for much of the twentieth century, the most widely used noncash payment method in the United States. How did such a relatively inefficient form of payment become so dominant? This article traces the historical...

Checks continue to dominate the market for noncash retail payments in the United States. Each year, U.S. residents write between 65 billion and 70 billion checks, an average of one check per business day per resident. This dependence on checks is unique among developed countries. It is also...

Currency fraud (counterfeiting), check fraud, and credit card fraud are serious problems, costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars each year. But with each of these traditional payments methods, the problem of fraud has been kept at a manageable level. To be successful in the marketplace,...

Rapid developments in technology have brought about new methods of retail payment-such as remote banking, electronic cash, and debit, stored-value, and smart cards-that were unavailable a decade ago. Some observers believe that these alternative payment methods will differ from traditional...

Payment finality is critical to decentralized exchange. By specifying how the transfer of one type of claim extinguishes another, the rules governing finality minimize opportunities for default along credit chains and allocate other risks. ; The authors provide a basic analysis of finality and...

The history of money is marked by innovations that have expanded the role of "inside money"-money created by the private sector. For instance, the past few years have seen the development of several types of on-line payment arrangements, some of which have been dubbed "on-line currencies." ;...

In Privatopia, Evan McKenzie documents the history and legal structure of common interest developments, a form of residential community organization. McKenzie also looks at possible explanations for the rising popularity of these organizations despite the fact that their governing associations...