Using data from a nationally representative survey on consumer payment behavior, we estimate Heckman two-stage regressions on the adoption and use of seven different payment instruments. We find that the characteristics of payments are important in determining consumer payment behavior, even...

The way that consumers make payments is changing rapidly and attracts important current policy interest. This paper develops and estimates a structural model of adoption and use of payment instruments by U.S. consumers. We use a cross-section of data from the Survey of Consumer Payment Choice, a...

Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. payment system has undergone a transformation featuring a significant decline in the use of paper checks that is quite uneven across consumers and not well understood. This paper shows that characteristics of payment instruments are the most important determinants...

We designed and fielded an experimental module in the American Life Panel (ALP) where we ask individuals to report the number of their purchases and the amount paid by debit cards, cash, credit cards, and personal checks. The design of the experiment features several stages of randomization....

Despite the centrality of credit and debt in the financial lives of Americans, little is known about how U.S. consumers' access and utilization of credit changes in the short and long term, and how these changes are related to changes in U.S. consumers' debt. This paper uses data from the...

Most of the reduction in GDP volatility since the 1983 is accounted for by a decline in comovement of output among industries that hold inventories. This decline is not simply a passive byproduct of reduced volatility in common factors or shocks. Instead, structural changes occurred in the...

We build and estimate a two-sector (goods and services) dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with two types of inventories: materials (input) inventories facilitate the production of finished goods, while finished goods (output) inventories yield utility services. The model is estimated...

The revolving credit available to consumers changes substantially over the business cycle, life cycle, and for individuals. We show that debt changes at the same time as credit, so credit utilization is remarkably stable. From ages 20–40, for example, credit card limits grow by more than 700...

A two-sector real business cycle model, estimated with postwar U.S. data, identifies shocks to the levels and growth rates of total factor productivity in distinct consumption- and investment-goods-producing technologies. This model attributes most of the productivity slowdown of the 1970s to...

The use of paper instruments—cash and checks—has been declining in the United States, and consumers have been gradually replacing paper with cards and electronic payments. Stavins (2021) examines the evolution of payments from paper to cards and electronic payments, while Shy (2020) shows...