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Who gains and who loses from credit card payments?: theory and calibrations

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Abstract

Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary transfer to credit card users from non-card (or ?cash?) users because merchants generally do not set differential prices for card users to recoup the costs of fees and rewards. On average, each cash-using household pays $151 to card-using households and each card-using household receives $1,482 from cash users every year. 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 in general. On average, and after accounting for rewards paid to households by banks, the lowest-income household ($20,000 or less annually) pays $23 and the highest-income household ($150,000 or more annually) receives $756 every year. We build and calibrate a model of consumer payment choice to compute the effects of merchant fees and card rewards on consumer welfare. Reducing merchant fees and card rewards would likely increase consumer welfare.

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  • Scott Schuh & Oz Shy & Joanna Stavins, 2010. "Who gains and who loses from credit card payments?: theory and calibrations," Public Policy Discussion Paper 10-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbpp:10-3
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    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Manjong, 2014. "Constrained or unconstrained price for debit card payment?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 53-65.
    2. Carton, F.L. & Xiong, H. & McCarthy, J.B., 2022. "Drivers of financial well-being in socio-economic deprived populations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    3. Scott L. Fulford & Scott Schuh, 2023. "Revolving versus Convenience Use of Credit Cards: Evidence from U.S. Credit Bureau Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(7), pages 1667-1701, October.
    4. Sumit Agarwal & Sujit Chakravorti & Anna Lunn, 2010. "Why do banks reward their customers to use their credit cards?," Working Paper Series WP-2010-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    5. Berkovich Efraim, 2012. "Card Rewards and Cross-Subsidization in the Gasoline and Grocery Markets," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 11(4), pages 1-38, December.
    6. Philip Mader, 2018. "Contesting Financial Inclusion," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(2), pages 461-483, March.

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    Keywords

    Credit cards;

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