While payment card usage has increased dramatically, the stock of outstanding currency has not declined as rapidly. Amromin and Chakravorti analyze changes in cash demand for 13 advanced economies from 1988 to 2003 by separating cash into three denomination categories to disentangle its store of wealth and payment functions. Defining...
In his presentation to Bank of Mexico economists and payment experts, Chakravorti presented an update of economic models that consider various forms of regulation.
Bolt and Chakravorti study the ability of banks and merchants to influence the consumer's payment instrument choice. Consumers participate in payment card networks to insure themselves against three types of shocks - income, theft, and their merchant match. Merchants choose which payment instruments to accept based on their production costs...
Bolt and Chakravorti explain how a payment network operates. Having established the payment network framework, they discuss the costs and benefits of providing and using payment cards relative to various other types of payment instruments. Next, they review the key contributions to the theoretical payment card literature. They consider papers...
Businesses, both small and large, are adopting new technologies to automate and reduce the exchange of paper documents in their transaction flows. However, more than 80% of payments between businesses are still made with paper checks. As the exchange of information along the supply chain becomes increasingly electronic, it raises...
The proportion of retail, non-cash payments made electronically in the U.S. grew from 15% in 1979 to 40% in 2000. A recent Chicago Fed conference addressed the important question of whether today's payment networks can adequately support emerging payment technologies.
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 authorities around the world. The costs...