December 9, 2009

The Fee Neutrality Claim

Omri Ben-Shahar

Will reduction in interchange fees help or hurt consumers? Two posts yesterday made the conjecture that a reduction in one category of fees would only increase other fees, and that…

December 9, 2009

Assessing the Social Effects of the Use of Credit Cards

Allan Shampine

The GAO has a fairly extensive discussion of the costs and benefits of credit cards to merchants.  However, that discussion focuses on the individual benefits.  I would like to step…

December 9, 2009

The Cost of Payments Interchange: Issues No One Talks About

Jim VanDyke

James Van Dyke is President and Founder of Javelin Strategy and Research. I feel that at least two important issues are being left out of the raging controversy over the cost…

December 9, 2009

Interchange fees and other rules

Joshua Gans

The GAO report raises concerns about card association the level of interchange fees (that acquirers pay issuers for credit card transactions processed) but also about other card association rules such…

December 8, 2009

Onions Forever! A Response to Allan Shampine

Richard Epstein

There is nothing like the provocative post from Allan Shampine to move this debate up a notch.  First, I did not say that the debate over interchange fees was Onionesque.…

Financial Regulation

December 8, 2009

Interchange Legislation as Counterproductive Consumer Protection Regulation

Joshua Wright

Joshua D. Wright is Assistant Professor of Law and George Mason University School of Law. I want to begin with the premise that the legislation pending in Congress, in whatever…

December 8, 2009

Why Now? The Faulty Economics of Credit Card Reform

Richard Epstein

Richard A. Epstein is the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and…

Financial Regulation

December 8, 2009

Welcome: The Law and Economics of Interchange Fees and Credit Card Markets

Geoffrey A. Manne

The Law and Economics of Interchange Fees and Credit Card Markets Today marks the start of our two-day symposium on the law and economics of interchange fees and credit cards. …

December 8, 2009

Credit Cards in Context: Framing the Discussion

Allan Shampine

While the GAO report provides a useful summary of many of the issues being debated within the credit card community, the GAO’s mandate was, in some ways, rather narrow. 

Antitrust & Consumer Protection