IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jfsres/v60y2021i2d10.1007_s10693-020-00342-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debit Card Incentives and Consumer Behavior: Evidence Using Natural Experiment Methods

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Clerkin

    (Marquette University)

  • Andrew Hanson

    (University of Illinois at Chicago)

Abstract

We estimate the effects of a debit card incentive program on consumer behavior using bank-recorded transaction micro data and a natural experiment design. Using geographic and eligibility features of a generous pilot program offered by a Midwestern regional bank, we estimate both difference in difference and regression discontinuity models, allowing us to identify changes in debit and cash usage resulting from the program. Our primary results show that the program increases the number of debit transactions per customer by between 18.8 and 20.4%. We also estimate that cash usage declines, although these estimates are not statistically significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Clerkin & Andrew Hanson, 2021. "Debit Card Incentives and Consumer Behavior: Evidence Using Natural Experiment Methods," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 60(2), pages 135-155, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jfsres:v:60:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s10693-020-00342-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s10693-020-00342-9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10693-020-00342-9
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10693-020-00342-9?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon, John & Smith, Kylie & West, Tim, 2010. "Price incentives and consumer payment behaviour," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1759-1772, August.
    2. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    3. C. Fritz Foley, 2011. "Welfare Payments and Crime," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 97-112, February.
    4. Richard Wright & Erdal Tekin & Volkan Topalli & Chandler McClellan & Timothy Dickinson & Richard Rosenfeld, 2017. "Less Cash, Less Crime: Evidence from the Electronic Benefit Transfer Program," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 361-383.
    5. Ching, Andrew T. & Hayashi, Fumiko, 2010. "Payment card rewards programs and consumer payment choice," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1773-1787, August.
    6. Humphrey David & Willesson Magnus & Lindblom Ted & Bergendahl Göran, 2003. "What Does it Cost to Make a Payment?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-16, June.
    7. Armey, Laura E. & Lipow, Jonathan & Webb, Natalie J., 2014. "The impact of electronic financial payments on crime," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 46-57.
    8. Arango, Carlos & Huynh, Kim P. & Sabetti, Leonard, 2015. "Consumer payment choice: Merchant card acceptance versus pricing incentives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 130-141.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abedin, Mohammad Zoynul & Hajek, Petr & Sharif, Taimur & Satu, Md. Shahriare & Khan, Md. Imran, 2023. "Modelling bank customer behaviour using feature engineering and classification techniques," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tobias Trütsch, 2016. "The impact of mobile payment on payment choice," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(3), pages 299-336, August.
    2. Gabriele Camera & Marco Casari & Stefania Bortolotti, 2016. "An Experiment on Retail Payments Systems," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(2-3), pages 363-392, March.
    3. Magnac, Thierry, 2017. "ATM foreign fees and cash withdrawals," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 117-129.
    4. John Bagnall & David Bounie & Kim P. Huynh & Anneke Kosse & Tobias Schmidt & Scott Schuh, 2016. "Consumer Cash Usage: A Cross-Country Comparison with Payment Diary Survey Data," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 1-61, December.
    5. Guerino Ardizzi & Andrea Nobili & Giorgia Rocco, 2020. "A game changer in payment habits: evidence from daily data during a pandemic," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 591, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    6. Chun-Yu Ho & Nayoung Kim & Ying Rong & Xin Tian, 2022. "Promoting Mobile Payment with Price Incentives," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(10), pages 7614-7630, October.
    7. Michiel Bijlsma & Carin van der Cruijsen & Nicole Jonker, 2020. "Consumer propensity to adopt PSD2 services: trust for sale?," Working Papers 671, DNB.
    8. Carbó-Valverde, Santiago & Liñares-Zegarra, José M., 2011. "How effective are rewards programs in promoting payment card usage? Empirical evidence," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 3275-3291.
    9. Naoki Wakamori & Angelika Welte, 2017. "Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(1), pages 115-169, February.
    10. Fernando Borraz & Ignacio Munyo, 2020. "Conditional Cash Transfers and Crime: Higher Income but also Better Loot," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1804-1813.
    11. Arango-Arango, Carlos A. & Bouhdaoui, Yassine & Bounie, David & Eschelbach, Martina & Hernandez, Lola, 2018. "Cash remains top-of-wallet! International evidence from payment diaries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 38-48.
    12. Mary-Alice Doyle, 2018. "Consumer Credit Card Choice: Costs, Benefits and Behavioural Biases," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2018-11, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    13. Nicole Jonker & Mirjam Plooij & Johan Verburg, 2017. "Did a Public Campaign Influence Debit Card Usage? Evidence from the Netherlands," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 52(1), pages 89-121, October.
    14. Michael A. Kuhn, 2021. "Electronic Benefit Transfer and Food Expenditure Cycles," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 744-773, June.
    15. Michiel Bijlsma & Carin Cruijsen & Nicole Jonker, 2023. "Consumer Willingness to Share Payments Data: Trust for Sale?," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 64(1), pages 41-80, August.
    16. Joanna Stavins & Huijia Wu, 2017. "Payment discounts and surcharges: the role of consumer preferences," Working Papers 17-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    17. Schmidt-Dengler, Philipp & Stix, Helmut & Huynh, Kim P., 2014. "The Role of Card Acceptance in the Transaction Demand for Money," CEPR Discussion Papers 10183, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Shy, Oz, 2020. "Low-income consumers and payment choice," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(4), pages 292-300.
    19. Camara,Youssouf, 2021. "Digital Payments and Business Resilience : Evidence in the Time of COVID-19," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9665, The World Bank.
    20. Richard Wright & Erdal Tekin & Volkan Topalli & Chandler McClellan & Timothy Dickinson & Richard Rosenfeld, 2017. "Less Cash, Less Crime: Evidence from the Electronic Benefit Transfer Program," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 361-383.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jfsres:v:60:y:2021:i:2:d:10.1007_s10693-020-00342-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.