In this article, we construct a model to study competing payment networks, where networks offer differentiated products in terms of benefits to consumers and merchants. We study market equilibria for a variety of market structures: duopolistic competition and cartel, symmetric and asymmetric...

Credit cards provide benefits to consumers and merchants not provided by other payment instruments as evidenced by their explosive growth in the number and value of transactions over the last 20 years. Recently, credit card networks have come under scrutiny from regulators and antitrust...

Credit cards provide benefits to consumers and merchants not provided by other payment instruments as evidenced by their explosive growth in the number and value of transactions over the last 20 years. Recently, credit card networks have come under scrutiny from regulators and antitrust...

Payment cards continue to replace cash and checks in advanced economies. Along with the growth of payment card transactions has come greater scrutiny by public authorities of certain payment network rules along with the level of certain fees. This article reviews the growing payment card...

A recent literature, dealing with special markets characterized by bilateral network externalities, is summarized and critically assessed. Specific features of these markets, in terms of pricing principles and externalities, are discussed first. Afterwards, several issues related to competition...

I review two papers, addressing the issue of competition and quality determination in the market for Internet access services (Crémer, Rey, and Tirole (2000), Foros and Hansen (2001)). These two works come to seemingly opposite conclusions. After having summarized the two papers, I try to...

I review two papers, addressing the issue of competition and quality determination in the market for Internet access services (Crémer, Rey, and Tirole (2000), Foros and Hansen (2001)). These two works come to seemingly opposite conclusions. After having summarized the two papers, I try to...

A recent literature, dealing with special markets characterized by bilateral network externalities, is summarized and critically assessed. Specific features of these markets, in terms of pricing principles and externalities, are discussed first. Afterwards, several issues related to competition...