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...

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...

It is well-known that 50% or more of all jobs are obtained through informal channels i.e. connections to family or friends. As well, statistical studies show that observable individual factors account for only about 50% of the very wide variation in earnings. We seek to explain these two facts...

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...

This study measures the impact of information technology (IT) use on hospital operating costs during the late 1980's and early 1990's. Using a proprietary eight-year panel dataset (1987-1994) that catalogues application-level automation for the complete census of the 3,000 U.S. hospitals with...

This study examines the adoption of hospital information systems (HIS), specifically focusing on the connection between the financing of health care and the adoption of these new technologies. Using a recently uncovered dataset detailing the systems installed at over 2300 hospitals, the results...

Empirical studies of price competition typically analyze the direct effects of market structure, cost, and local demand on prices; this approach has been applied widely to studies of bank deposit rates. However, the theory of the banking firm suggests that substitutability between sources of...

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...