Debit card use at the point of sale has grown dramatically in recent years in the U.S., and now exceeds the number of credit card transactions. However, many questions remain regarding patterns of debit card use, consumer preferences when using debit, and how consumers might respond to explicit...

Dramatic changes have occurred in the U.S. payment system over the past two decades, most notably an explosion in electronic card-based payments. Not surprisingly, this shift has been accompanied by a series of policy debates, all of which hinge critically on understanding consumer behavior at...

In many countries around the world, electronic card-based payments have been replacing older types of payments at a rapid rate. In the United States, use of both debit cards and credit cards has been rising rapidly, while check volumes have been declining. The increased use of electronic payment...

This paper examines the relationship between competition and price discrimination in the market for mailing lists. More specifically, we examine whether sellers are more likely to segregate consumers by offering a menu of quality choices (second-degree price discrimination) and/or offering...

The literature on network industries and network effects notes that incompatibility across rival systems can influence firms' incentives to invest in product changes that are beneficial to the consumer. We investigate this phenomenon in the case of bank ATM networks, where the number of ATM...

Little empirical work exists on the substitutability of depository institutions. In particular, the willingness of consumers to substitute banks for thrifts and to switch between multimarket and single-market institutions (i.e., institutions with large vs. small branch networks) has been of...

This article presents descriptive findings from new survey data on households' decisions to change or remain with their providers of checking or savings accounts. The data show that the distribution of household tenure is wide, and that about a third of households have never changed depository...

This paper investigates depository institutions' decisions whether or not to impose surcharges (direct usage fees) on non-depositors who use their ATMs. In addition to documenting patterns of surcharging, we examine motives for surcharging, including both direct generation of fee revenue and the...

Bank lending to small firms in the U.S. fell substantially during the recent financial crisis and the ensuing recession. Because small firms account for a disproportionate share of new job creation, lending to these firms could have important implications for the pace of economic recovery. A...