CPRC Research - Boston Fed

December 2012	Why Don’t Most Merchants Use Price Discounts to Steer Consumer Payment Choice? by Tamás Briglevics and Oz Shy The cost of administering pricing that varies by payment instrument may exceed the potential reduction in merchants’ card costs.
September 2012	Explaining Adoption and Use of Payment Instruments by U.S. Consumers Sergei Koulayev, Marc Rysman, Scott Schuh, and Joanna Stavins How might consumers respond if costs of using debit or credit cards were to increase?
June 2012	Who Gains and Who Loses from the 2011 Debit Card Interchange Fee Reform? Oz Shy What types of merchants are likely to pay more (or less) under the new fee structure, which took effect in October 2011?
June 2012	Measuring Household Spending and Payment Habits: The Role of “Typical” and “Specific” Time Frames in Survey Questions Marco Angrisani, Arie Kapteyn, and Scott Schuh An experiment examines the impact of time span--a "typical" day versus a specific date, for example--on payments information reported.
June 2012	Investment in Customer Recognition and Information Exchange Oz Shy and Rune Stenbacka Consumers are worse off when firms acquire information about their preferences, and information sharing between firms further magnifies their losses.
April 2012	Potential Effects of an Increase in Debit Card Fees Joanna Stavins Analysis using the results of the 2008 and 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice.
February 2012	Effects of Credit Scores on Consumer Payment Choice Fumiko Hayashi and Joanna Stavins The authors find a significant negative relationship between debit card use and credit score.

December 2011	How Consumers Pay: Adoption and Use of Payments Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins The characteristics of payments, including setup, record keeping and security, are important in determining consumer payment behavior.
October 2011	Account-to-Account Electronic Money Transfers: Recent Developments in the United States Oz Shy The paper analyzes the emerging decentralized market in which A2A money transfers are becoming available in the United States and compares it with the A2A market in other countries.
July 2011	An Economic Analysis of the 2010 Proposed Settlement between the Department of Justice and Credit Card Networks Scott Schuh, Oz Shy, Joanna Stavins, and Robert Triest Merchants are unlikely to be able to take full advantage of the proposed settlement's new freedoms because they currently lack information on the exact discount fees they pay for credit card transactions.
July 2011	Customer Recognition and Competition Oz Shy and Rune Stenbacka Consumers would benefit from a policy banning information exchange regarding individual consumer preferences. Our welfare analysis shows that the gains to firms from uniform pricing (no recognition) are larger than the associated harm to consumers.
May 2011	Adopting, Using, and Discarding Paper and Electronic Payment Instruments: Variation by Age and Sex Ronald Mann This paper displays robust evidence of significant age- and race-related differences in payments choices.
April 2011	The 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice Kevin Foster, Erik Meijer, Scott Schuh and Michael A. Zabek In 2009, the average U.S. consumer held 5.0 of the nine payment instruments available, including cash, and used 3.8 of them during a typical month. Between the 2008 and 2009 surveys, consumers significantly increased their use of cash and close substitutes for cash.
March 2011	Mobile Payments in the United States: Mapping Out the Road Ahead Darin Contini and Marianne Crowe, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; Cynthia Merritt and Richard Oliver, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Steve Mott, BetterBuyDesign This paper depicts the current mobile payments ecosystem in the U.S.; discusses barriers, gaps, and opportunities; and sets forth elements that members of the Mobile Payments Industry Workgroup believe are fundamental to the development of a robust mobile payments environment.

August 2010	Who Gains and Who Loses from Credit Card Payments? Theory and Calibrations Scott Schuh, Oz Shy, and Joanna Stavins Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or cash) users. Because credit card spending and rewards are positively correlated with household income, the payment instrument transfer also induces a regressive transfer from low-income to high-income households.
May 2010	Mobile Payments in the United States at Retail Point of Sale: Current Market and Future Prospects Marianne Crowe, Marc Rysman, and Joanna Stavins the authors analyze the prospects for the U.S. market for mobile payments in retail payments, particularly the use of contactless and near-field communication technologies.
April 2010	The 2008 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice Kevin Foster, Erik Meijer, Scott Schuh and Michael A. Zabek The Survey of Consumer Payment Choice is a nationally representative survey that fills a gap in knowledge about the role of consumers in the transformation of payments from paper to electronic.
March 2010	A Short Survey of Network Economics Oz Shy Topics covered include: consumer demand under network effects, compatibility decisions and standardization, technology advances in network industries, two-sided markets, information networks and intellectual property, and social influence.
March 2010	Person-to-Person Electronic Funds Transfer: Recent Developments and Policy Issues Oz Shy The paper investigates the reasons that person-to-person electronic funds transfers are still not very common in the United States compared with practices in many other countries.

November 2009	Why Are (Some) Consumers (Finally) Writing Fewer Checks? The Role of Payment Characteristics Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins This paper estimates econometric models of consumers’ adoption use of seven common U.S. payment instruments. Journal of Banking and Finance, 34 No. 8..
November 2009	Frontier Policy Issues in Consumer Payment Behavior Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins As a consequence of this transformation from paper payment methods to cards and electronic payments, new and largely unexplored policy issues have surfaced with implications for consumer welfare. Journal of Payments Strategy and Systems, 3 No. 4.
October 2008	Summary of the Workshop on Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice Scott Schuh and Joanna Stavins Topics are the consumer adoption of new payment technologies, credit card debt management, payment card surcharges, and involuntary bank account closures.
June 2008	The Contactless Wave: A Case Study in Transit Payments Nasreen Quibria New developments in contactless transit fare payment technology, business models observed globally, and current trends and future directions for implementing contactless ticketing solutions in the United States.
September 2007	Who's Who in Consumer Payments Research? An Overview of Industry Payments Research Companies Margaret Carten and Nasreen Quibria Types of organizations conducting consumer payments research, the kinds of research services provided, characteristics of surveys, and elements to consider when evaluating data and reports.
July 2007	Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: 2006 Conference Summary Margaret Carten, Dan Littman, Scott Schuh, and Joanna Stavins Proceedings of the second Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice conference, July 25-27, 2006.
February 2007	The Boston Fed Study of Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: A Survey of Federal Reserve System Employees Marques Benton, Krista Blair, Marianne Crowe, and Scott Schuh A survey of payment behavior and attitudes.
February 2007	Mobile Phone: The New Way to Pay? Krista Becker Disparities in mobile payment technology, barriers to adoption of mobile payments, and considerations for the consumer acceptance and mass adoption of mobile payments technology.
January 2006	Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: A Conference Summary Marianne Crowe, Scott Schuh, and Joanna Stavins “Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: How and Why Do Consumers Choose Their Payment Methods?” October 27–28, 2005.