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...
Chakravorti and Emmons model side payments in a competitive creditâcard market. If competitive retailers absorb the cost of accepting credit cards by charging a higher goods price to everyone, then someone must subsidize convenience users of credit cards to prevent them from defecting to merchants who do not accept cards...