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Scale Economies, Scope Economies, and Technical Change in Federal Reserve Payment Processing

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  • Adams, Robert M
  • Bauer, Paul W
  • Sickles, Robin C

Abstract

In the past decade, the U.S. economy has witnessed a tremendous surge in the usage of electronic payment processing services and an increased importance of the firms that provide these services. In this paper, we estimate scale economies, scope economies, and technical change in the Federal Reserve's provision of payments processing from 1990 to 2000. We find considerable scale economies and evidence of some scope economies for the provision of automated clearinghouse, Fedwire, and Book-Entry services no matter whether we specify a separable quadratic or a translog cost function. In addition, we find that disembodied technical change also contributed to the overall reduction in costs throughout the 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Adams, Robert M & Bauer, Paul W & Sickles, Robin C, 2004. "Scale Economies, Scope Economies, and Technical Change in Federal Reserve Payment Processing," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(5), pages 943-958, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcb:jmoncb:v:36:y:2004:i:5:p:943-58
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    Cited by:

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    3. Ollinger, Michael & Ralston, Katherine L. & Guthrie, Joanne F., 2011. "School Breakfast and Lunch Costs: Are There Economies of Scale?," 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 103191, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    4. Gilbert, R. Alton & Wheelock, David C. & Wilson, Paul W., 2004. "New evidence on the Fed's productivity in providing payments services," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(9), pages 2175-2190, September.
    5. Guido K. Schaefer, 2008. "An Economic Analysis of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA)," FIW Working Paper series 011, FIW.
    6. Robert DeYoung & Douglas Evanoff & Philip Molyneux, 2009. "Mergers and Acquisitions of Financial Institutions: A Review of the Post-2000 Literature," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 36(2), pages 87-110, December.

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