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Working Paper
Has COVID Changed Consumer Payment Behavior?
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused large changes in consumer spending, including how people make their payments. We use data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers collected before COVID in 2018 and 2019 and during COVID in 2020 to analyze changes in consumer payment behavior during the pandemic. We find that compared with their payment behavior in 2019, consumers had shifted some of their purchases from in person to online by fall 2020, significantly lowered their use of cash for purchases, and shifted their person-to-person (P2P) payments away from paper (cash and checks). ...
Discussion Paper
Consumer behavior and payment choice : 2006 conference summary
This paper summarizes the proceedings of the second Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice conference, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on July 25?27, 2006. These conferences are unique in featuring the collaboration of two groups of payments experts ? the private-sector payments industry on the one hand, and the academic, research, and policymaking communities on the other ? to stimulate more research and understanding of consumer payment behavior. The central focus of this second conference was learning more about the numerous consumer payments data sources that are available ? but ...
Working Paper
Credit card debt and payment use
Approximately half of credit card holders in the United States regularly carry unpaid credit card debt. These so-called "revolvers" exhibit payment behavior that differs from that of those who repay their entire credit card balance every month. Previous literature has focused on the adoption of debit cards by people who carry credit card balances, but so far there has been no empirical analysis exploring the relationship between revolving behavior and patterns of payment use, such as substitution away from credit cards to other payment methods. ; Using data collected in the 2005 Survey of ...
Discussion Paper
An economic analysis of the 2010 proposed settlement between the Department of Justice and credit card networks
In 2010, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit against the credit card networks American Express, MasterCard, and Visa for alleged antitrust violations. We evaluate the extent to which the recently proposed settlement between the DOJ and Visa and MasterCard (henceforth, "Proposed Settlement") is likely to achieve its central objective: "?to allow Merchants to attempt to influence the General Purpose [Credit] Card or Form of Payment Customers select by providing choices and information in a competitive market." In word and spirit, the Proposed Settlement represents a significant ...
Report
2018 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice
In 2018, U.S. consumers made 72 payments per month on average, not a significant change from 2017.As in 2017, the most frequently used payment instruments were debit cards (34 percent of alltransactions), cash (24 percent), and credit cards (23 percent). Over the 11 years of the survey, debit,cash, and credit have consistently been the most popular ways to pay. For the first time in 2018, debitcards replaced cash as the payment instrument used most frequently for in-person purchases.Some key findings about medium-term trends from 2015 to 2018 include the following:• The share of consumers ...
Discussion Paper
Summary of the workshop on Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice
This paper summarizes and outlines some interesting issues that arose during a recent workshop on Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice, hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston?s Emerging Payments Research Group (EPRG) on July 25, 2008. Topics addressed are the consumer adoption of new payment technologies, credit card debt management, payment card surcharges, and involuntary bank account closures.
Working Paper
Payments Evolution from Paper to Electronic: Bill Payments and Purchases
Consumer payments in the United States gradually have been shifting away from paper checks for the past several years. Cash use has declined as well, although at a much slower pace. As the number of check payments has decreased, those payments have been replaced with electronic and card payments. However, the transition from paper to electronic and card payments for bills has not proceeded in the same way as the transition for purchases. Using detailed consumer survey panel data collected over nine years, we track the same respondents over time and find that consumers who reduced their check ...
Report
The 2012 diary of consumer payment choice
This paper describes the results, content, and methodology of the 2012 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC), the first edition of a survey that measures payment behavior through the daily recording of U.S. consumers? spending by type of payment instrument. A diary makes it possible to collect detailed information on individual payments, including dollar amount, device (if any) used to make the payment (computer, mobile phone, etc.), and payee type (business, person, government). This edition of the DCPC included about 2,500 participants and was conducted in October 2012. During that month, ...
Report
The 2011 and 2012 Surveys of Consumer Payment Choice
In 2012, the number of consumer payments did not change significantly from 2010 as the economy settled into steady expansion following the financial crisis and recession. After increasing by 28 percent from 2008 to 2010, cash payments by consumers fell back by 10 percent from 2010 to 2012, while the share of cash payments dropped for a third straight year to 26.8 percent. However, the number and dollar value of cash withdrawals and the dollar value of cash holdings by consumers increased in 2012. Credit and charge card payments by consumers, which declined in 2009, rebounded further, ...