IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedkrw/rwp08-07.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The economics of payment card fee structure: what drives payment card rewards?

Author

Listed:
  • Fumiko Hayashi

Abstract

This paper investigates potential market forces that cause payment card rewards even when providing payment card rewards is not the most efficient. Three factors-oligopolistic merchants, output-maximizing card networks, and the merchant's inability to set different prices across payment methods-may potentially explain the prevalence of payment card rewards programs in the United States today. The paper also points out that competition among card networks may potentially make payment rewards too generous, and thus deteriorate social welfare and its distribution. The situation may potentially warrant public policy interventions. ; Also issued as a Payments System Research Working Paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Fumiko Hayashi, 2008. "The economics of payment card fee structure: what drives payment card rewards?," Research Working Paper RWP 08-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedkrw:rwp08-07
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.kansascityfed.org/documents/711/pdf-RWP08-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garcia-Swartz Daniel D. & Hahn Robert W. & Layne-Farrar Anne, 2006. "The Move Toward a Cashless Society: A Closer Look at Payment Instrument Economics," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-24, June.
    2. Marc Rysman, 2007. "An Empirical Analysis Of Payment Card Usage," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 1-36, March.
    3. Hayashi Fumiko, 2006. "A Puzzle of Card Payment Pricing: Why Are Merchants Still Accepting Card Payments?," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-31, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Graeme Guthrie & Julian Wright, 2007. "Competing Payment Schemes," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 37-67, March.
    6. 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.
    7. Jean-Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2003. "Platform Competition in Two-Sided Markets," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(4), pages 990-1029, June.
    8. 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.
    9. Schmalensee, Richard, 2002. "Payment Systems and Interchange Fees," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 103-122, June.
    10. Baxter, William F, 1983. "Bank Interchange of Transactional Paper: Legal and Economic Perspectives," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(3), pages 541-588, October.
    11. James J. McAndrews & Zhu Wang, 2006. "Microfoundations of two-sided markets: the payment card example," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 06-01, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    12. Jean-Charles Rochet Author-Email:rochet@cict.fr Author-Workplace-Name: IDEI, University of Toulouse & Jean Tirole Author-Email: tirole@cict.fr Author-Workplace-Name: IDEI, University of Toulouse, 2006. "Two-Sided Markets: A Progress Report," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, Autumn.
    13. Richard Schmalensee, 2002. "Payment Systems and Interchange Fees," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(2), pages 103-122, June.
    14. Jean‐Charles Rochet & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Two‐sided markets: a progress report," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 645-667, September.
    15. Mark Armstrong, 2006. "Competition in two‐sided markets," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, September.
    16. Fumiko Hayashi, 2006. "Pricing and welfare implications of payment card network competition," Payments System Research Working Paper PSR WP 06-03, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    17. 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.
    18. Mark Armstrong Author-Email: mark.armstrong@ucl.ac.uk Author-Workplace-Name: University College of London, 2006. "Competition in Two-Sided Markets," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 37(3), pages 668-691, Autumn.
    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. 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.
    2. Oz Shy, 2011. "A Short Survey of Network Economics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(2), pages 119-149, March.
    3. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2010. "Digitization of Retail Payment," DNB Working Papers 270, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    4. Rysman Marc & Wright Julian, 2014. "The Economics of Payment Cards," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(3), pages 303-353, September.
    5. Wilko Bolt & Sujit Chakravorti, 2008. "Economics of payment cards: a status report," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 32(Q IV), pages 15-27.
    6. Bolt, Wilko & Jonker, Nicole & van Renselaar, Corry, 2010. "Incentives at the counter: An empirical analysis of surcharging card payments and payment behaviour in the Netherlands," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1738-1744, August.
    7. Rochet, Jean Charles & Tirole, Jean, 2008. "Tying in two-sided markets and the honor all cards rule," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1333-1347, November.
    8. Bolt, Wilko & Schmiedel, Heiko, 2009. "SEPA, efficiency, and payment card competition," Working Paper Series 1140, European Central Bank.
    9. James J. McAndrews & Zhu Wang, 2008. "The economics of two-sided payment card markets: pricing, adoption and usage," Research Working Paper RWP 08-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    10. Santiago Carbó-Valverde & Sujit Chakravorti & Francisco Rodríguez-Fernández, 2009. "Regulating two-sided markets: an empirical investigation," Working Paper Series WP-09-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    11. Stuart E. Weiner & Julian Wright, 2005. "Interchange fees in various countries : developments and determinants," Proceedings – Payments System Research Conferences, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue May, pages 5-49.
    12. Zhu Wang, 2013. "Demand externalitites and price cap regulation: Learning from a two-sided market," Working Paper 13-06, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    13. Verdier, Marianne, 2006. "Retail Payment Systems: What can we Learn from Two-Sided Markets?," MPRA Paper 2606, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Verdier, Marianne, 2010. "Interchange fees and incentives to invest in payment card systems," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 539-554, September.
    15. Wilko Bolt, 2012. "Retail Payment Systems: Competition, Innovation, and Implications," DNB Working Papers 362, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    16. David S. Evans & Richard Schmalensee, 2005. "The economics of interchange fees and their regulation : an overview," Proceedings – Payments System Research Conferences, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue May, pages 73-120.
    17. Ron Borzekowski & Elizabeth K. Kiser & Mark D. Manuszak & Robin A. Prager, 2009. "Interchange fees and payment card networks: economics, industry developments, and policy issues," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-23, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Galeotti, Andrea & Moraga-González, José Luis, 2009. "Platform intermediation in a market for differentiated products," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 417-428, May.
    19. Graeme Guthrie & Julian Wright, 2007. "Competing Payment Schemes," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 37-67, March.
    20. Oz Shy, 2011. "A Short Survey of Network Economics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 38(2), pages 119-149, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fedkrw:rwp08-07. 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: Zach Kastens (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbkcus.html .

    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.