Greater digitization of commerce has brought enormous benefits to businesses and consumers. By using digital payment capabilities and online marketplaces, many micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are more able to compete with larger firms through greater customer choice and reach. This paper examines the results of a Visa Economic...
In his testimony, Bob Chakravorti elaborated on the following areas: first, the state of the economic literature on the costs and benefits of capital regulation; second, the enormous changes that we have seen post-crisis in the bank capital regulatory landscape and the ensuing changes to the quality and quantity of...
Baumann, Chakravorti, and Shaaya identify and summarize the recent academic and industry literature on the benefits of large banks from the perspective of economies of scale and scope along with the benefits of a large, diverse set of products and services provided by a large bank. Second, they explore how...
The provision of retail payment services is complex with many participants engaging in a series of interrelated bilateral transactions and subject to large economies of scale and scope along with strong adoption, usage and network externalities. This makes sound public policy difficult. We focus on three types of market interventions...
Bolt and Chakravorti discuss different types of market interventions by public authorities in retail payment markets. They concentrate on three types of market interventions. First, they analyze the impact of removing pricing restrictions placed on merchants that prevent them from setting different prices based on the payment instrument used to...
Bolt and Chakravorti investigate the research on electronic payment systems. The rapid growth in the use of electronic payment instruments, especially payment cards, is a striking feature of most modern economies. Payment data indicate that strong scale economies exist for electronic payments. Payment costs will decrease through the consolidation of...
Using a unique administrative level dataset from a large and diverse U.S. financial institution, Agarwal, Chakravorti, and Lunn test the impact of rewards on credit card spending and debt. Specifically, we study the impact of cash-back rewards on individuals before and during their enrollment in the program. We find that...
On June 21–22, 2010, the Chicago Fed and the University of Granada co-sponsored a conference that brought together policymakers, academics, and industry practitioners to discuss evolving retail payment systems and the role of public authorities, with several panels focusing on the Single Euro Payments Area.
In his presentation, Bob Chakravorti described several new and pending payment regulations in the United States at the Cards & Payments 2010 conference held in Paris, France.
Chakravorti, Gunther, and Moore suggest a subtle, yet far-reaching, tension in the objectives specified by the Monetary Control Act of 1980 (MCA) for the Federal Reserve’s role in providing retail payment services, such as check processing. Specifically, we argue that the requirement of an overall cost-revenue match, coupled with the...