IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbfina/v154y2023ics0378426623001668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regressive effects of payment card pricing and merchant cost pass-through in the United States and Canada

Author

Listed:
  • Felt, Marie-Hélène
  • Hayashi, Fumiko
  • Stavins, Joanna
  • Welte, Angelika

Abstract

We use novel datasets from multiple sources to quantify US and Canadian consumers’ net pecuniary costs of making payments across income cohorts. The net costs include merchants’ payment acceptance cost that is passed on to consumers, payment card rewards, and fees paid to financial institutions. We find that the net costs as the ratio to transaction value is generally the highest for the bottom income cohort and the lowest for the top cohort, indicating regressive distributional effects. In Canada, the difference in the ratio between the bottom and top cohorts remains positive under all combinations of alternative assumptions, ranging from 0.24 percentage points (pps) to 0.85 pps. In contrast, in the US the difference ranges from -0.30 pps to 0.74 pps, suggesting that the regressive effects disappear under some combinations of alternative assumptions. Further research with more detailed data is needed to refine our results for the US.

Suggested Citation

  • Felt, Marie-Hélène & Hayashi, Fumiko & Stavins, Joanna & Welte, Angelika, 2023. "Regressive effects of payment card pricing and merchant cost pass-through in the United States and Canada," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbfina:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0378426623001668
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.106968
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426623001668
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbankfin.2023.106968?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. Marion, Justin & Muehlegger, Erich, 2011. "Fuel tax incidence and supply conditions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(9), pages 1202-1212.
    2. Heng Chen & Walter Engert & Marie-Hélène Felt & Kim P. Huynh & Gradon Nicholls & Daneal O'Habib & Julia Zhu, 2021. "Cash and COVID-19: The impact of the second wave in Canada," Discussion Papers 2021-12, Bank of Canada.
    3. Kim Huynh & Gradon Nicholls & Mitchell Nicholson, 2019. "2018 Merchant Acceptance Survey," Staff Analytical Notes 2019-31, Bank of Canada.
    4. Emi Nakamura & Dawit Zerom, 2010. "Accounting for Incomplete Pass-Through," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(3), pages 1192-1230.
    5. Fumiko Hayashi, 2012. "Discounts and surcharges: implications for consumer payment choice," Payments System Research Briefing, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Jun.
    6. Gans Joshua S & King Stephen P, 2003. "The Neutrality of Interchange Fees in Payment Systems," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-18, January.
    7. Angelika Welte, 2016. "Wait a Minute: The Efficacy of Discounting versus Non-Pecuniary Payment Steering," Staff Working Papers 16-8, Bank of Canada.
    8. Ben Fung & Kim Huynh & Anneke Kosse, 2017. "Acceptance and Use of Payments at the Point of Sale in Canada," Bank of Canada Review, Bank of Canada, vol. 2017(Autumn), pages 14-26.
    9. Angelika Welte & Joy Wu, 2023. "The 2021–22 Merchant Acceptance Survey Pilot Study," Discussion Papers 2023-1, Bank of Canada.
    10. Claire Greene & Ellen A. Merry & Joanna Stavins, 2021. "Has COVID Changed Consumer Payment Behavior?," Working Papers 21-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    11. Tamás Briglevics & Oz Shy, 2014. "Why Don’t Most Merchants Use Price Discounts to Steer Consumer Payment Choice?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 44(4), pages 367-392, June.
    12. Stavins, Joanna, 2018. "Consumer preferences for payment methods: Role of discounts and surcharges," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 35-53.
    13. Joanna Stavins, 2016. "The effect of demographics on payment behavior: panel data with sample selection," Working Papers 16-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    14. Christopher Henry & Kim Huynh & Angelika Welte, 2018. "2017 Methods-of-Payment Survey Report," Discussion Papers 18-17, Bank of Canada.
    15. Fumiko Hayashi, 2009. "Do U.S. consumers really benefit from payment card rewards?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 94(Q I), pages 37-63.
    16. Scott L. Fulford & Scott Schuh, 2017. "Credit card utilization and consumption over the life cycle and business cycle," Working Papers 17-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    17. Schwartz Marius & Vincent Daniel R., 2006. "The No Surcharge Rule and Card User Rebates: Vertical Control by a Payment Network," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, March.
    18. Anneke Kosse & Heng Chen & Marie-Hélène Felt & Valéry Dongmo Jiongo & Kerry Nield & Angelika Welte, 2017. "The Costs of Point-of-Sale Payments in Canada," Discussion Papers 17-4, Bank of Canada.
    19. Garcia-Swartz Daniel D. & Hahn Robert W. & Layne-Farrar Anne, 2006. "The Move Toward a Cashless Society: Calculating the Costs and Benefits," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-30, June.
    20. Severin Borenstein & A. Colin Cameron & Richard Gilbert, 1997. "Do Gasoline Prices Respond Asymmetrically to Crude Oil Price Changes?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(1), pages 305-339.
    21. Leibtag, Ephraim S. & Nakamura, Alice & Nakamura, Emi & Zerom, Dawit, 2007. "Cost Pass-Through In The U.S. Coffee Industry," Economic Research Report 7253, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    22. Bita Shabgard & Javier Asensio, 2023. "The price effects of reducing payment card interchange fees," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 189-221, June.
    23. Christopher Henry & Matthew Shimoda & Julia Zhu, 2022. "2021 Methods-of-Payment Survey Report," Discussion Papers 2022-23, Bank of Canada.
    24. Bourguignon, Hélène & Gomes, Renato & Tirole, Jean, 2019. "Shrouded transaction costs: must-take cards, discounts and surcharges," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 99-144.
    25. Joanna Stavins, 2017. "How do consumers make their payment choices?," Research Data Report 17-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Marie-Hélène Felt & Fumiko Hayashi & Joanna Stavins & Angelika Welte, 2020. "Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in the United States and Canada," Working Papers 20-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Marie-Hélène Felt & Fumiko Hayashi & Joanna Stavins & Angelika Welte, 2021. "Distributional Effects of Payment Card Pricing and Merchant Cost Pass-through in Canada and the United States," Staff Working Papers 21-8, Bank of Canada.
    3. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: what is the optimal balance between merchant fee and payment card rewards?," Research Working Paper RWP 08-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    4. Takanori ADACHI & Mark J. TREMBLAY, 2022. "Do No-Surcharge Rules Increase Effective Retail Prices?," Discussion papers e-22-003, Graduate School of Economics , Kyoto University.
    5. Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: policy considerations of payment card rewards," Research Working Paper RWP 08-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    6. Christos Genakos & Mario Pagliero, 2022. "Competition and Pass-Through: Evidence from Isolated Markets," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 35-57, October.
    7. Kim, Young Sik & Lee, Manjong, 2016. "Who should bear the resource cost of electronic transaction?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 47(PB), pages 270-280.
    8. Morakinyo O. Adetutu & Thomas G. Weyman-Jones, 2019. "Fuel Subsidies Versus Market Power: Is There a Countervailing Second-Best Optimum?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 74(4), pages 1619-1646, December.
    9. Chintamani Jog & Travis Roach, 2021. "How Have COVID-19 Case Rates Impacted Retail Gasoline Price Markups? Evidence From Daily Prices and Transportation Choices," Energy RESEARCH LETTERS, Asia-Pacific Applied Economics Association, vol. 3(Early Vie), pages 1-5.
    10. Frans Saxén, 2014. "The No Surcharge Rule and Merchant Competition," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 39-66, March.
    11. Bourguignon, Hélène & Gomes, Renato & Tirole, Jean, 2019. "Shrouded transaction costs: must-take cards, discounts and surcharges," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 99-144.
    12. Koopmans, Carl & Lieshout, Rogier, 2016. "Airline cost changes: To what extent are they passed through to the passenger?," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-11.
    13. Shy, Oz, 2021. "Cashless stores and cash users," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 622-638.
    14. Walter Engert & Ben Fung & Björn Segendorf, 2019. "A Tale of Two Countries: Cash Demand in Canada and Sweden," Discussion Papers 2019-7, Bank of Canada.
    15. Rasch, Alexander & Thöne, Miriam & Wenzel, Tobias, 2020. "Drip pricing and its regulation: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 353-370.
    16. Geneviève Vallée, 2018. "How Long Does It Take You to Pay? A Duration Study of Canadian Retail Transaction Payment Times," Staff Working Papers 18-46, Bank of Canada.
    17. Oz Shy & Zhu Wang, 2011. "Why Do Payment Card Networks Charge Proportional Fees?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1575-1590, June.
    18. Atanu Ghoshray & Sushil Mohan, 2021. "Coffee price dynamics: an analysis of the retail-international price margin [Commodity dependence and development: suggestions to tackle the commodities problem]," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 48(4), pages 983-1006.
    19. Douglas A. Irwin, 2014. "Tariff Incidence: Evidence from U.S. Sugar Duties, 1890-1930," NBER Working Papers 20635, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Kim Huynh & Gradon Nicholls & Mitchell Nicholson, 2019. "2018 Merchant Acceptance Survey," Staff Analytical Notes 2019-31, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Regressive effects; Rewards; Credit cards; Interchange fees; Pass-through;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • G21 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Banks; Other Depository Institutions; Micro Finance Institutions; Mortgages
    • L81 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Retail and Wholesale Trade; e-Commerce

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:eee:jbfina:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0378426623001668. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbf .

    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.