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on Payment Systems and Financial Technology |
| By: | Simplice Asongu (Yaoundé/Cameroun); Jacinta C. Nwachukwu (Coventry University) |
| Abstract: | The study assesses the role of mobile phones and mobile banking in decreasing inequality in 52 African countries. The empirical procedure involves first, examining the income-redistributive effect of mobile phone penetration and then investigating the contribution of mobile banking services in this relationship. The findings suggest an equalizing income-redistributive effect of ‘mobile phone penetration’ and ‘mobile banking’, with a higher income-equalizing effect from mobile banking compared to mobile phone penetration. Poverty alleviation channels explaining this difference in inequality mitigating propensity are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Banking; Mobile Phones; Shadow Economy; Financial Development; Africa |
| JEL: | E00 G20 L96 O17 O33 |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:16/021&r=pay |
| By: | Stavins, Joanna (Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) |
| Abstract: | Connolly and Stavins (2015) showed that payment behavior is strongly correlated with consumers’ demographic and income attributes over the 2009–2013 period. In this paper, we apply a random effects panel data model with sample selection based on Wooldridge (1995) to estimate the effect of each attribute on payment-instrument adoption and use. We find that age, education, income, and race are significant in explaining payment behavior even after controlling for all the other attributes of consumers and for payment-instrument characteristics. Most notably, the lowest-income, lowest-education, and minority consumers adopt a very limited set of payment instruments compared with their counterparts even when education and age are controlled for. These consumers also have a significantly different pattern of payment use conditional on adoption; they rely significantly more on cash and less on credit cards for their transactions. The data do not allow us to isolate supply-side and demand-side factors to explain the causes of these discrepancies. Women use significantly less cash than men, but use more debit cards, checks, and online banking bill pay, even when we control for the degree of bill-paying responsibility they have for their households. Single people use more cash, while married people use more checks. Although characteristics of payment instruments, such as cost, convenience, and security, significantly affect payment behavior, consumers’ socio-demographic attributes explain most of the variation. Separating the effects of consumers’ age from the effects of birth cohorts indicates that in most cases age and birth-cohort trends move together. |
| JEL: | D12 D14 E41 |
| Date: | 2016–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbwp:16-5&r=pay |
| By: | Chowdhury, Nasif |
| Abstract: | Electronic informal (eWOM) is a rising promoting background for customers which affect their evaluation of various existing brands and items, for example, versatile brands through online correspondence channels. The World Wide Web is a magnificent pattern of the thousand years that the key pattern in correspondence has planned. Correspondence is a crucial capacity of the web that is not seen in other media. The World Wide Web gives likelihood to make points of interest to individuals, for example, the distributed business sector, the capacity to return subtle elements through telephone, aides, and productions make considering potential outcomes, and also self-learning. Movies and TV give pleasure, and every one of these things are done in the meantime. This study expects to clarify the impact of electronic informal (eWOM) on customers buy goals in Bangladesh telecom industry. Notwithstanding, the primary components are having audits and the ability to convey, which customizes the correspondence procedure. This study has been roused by the need to see how eWOM impacts buyers' buy goals as to the Bangladesh point of view. |
| Keywords: | Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM), Consumers Purchase Intentions, Bangladesh Telecommunication Industry, Word of Mouth Marketing |
| JEL: | M31 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:142747&r=pay |
| By: | Asian Development Bank (ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) (Pacific Department, ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) (Pacific Department, ADB); Asian Development Bank (ADB) |
| Abstract: | The challenging geography and poor infrastructure of many Pacific nations mean digital financial services (DFS) are a particularly effective means of enhancing financial inclusion in the region. However, a number of major challenges confront DFS in the Pacific, including the establishment of reliable agent networks and the building of sufficient consumer trust in DFS for it to become a viable payments channel. This report examines the current use of DFS in the Pacific, analyzes the issues that need to be addressed, and provides recommendations for increasing financial inclusion in the region. This publication was produced by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative, a regional technical assistance facility cofinanced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Government of Australia and the New Zealand government. |
| Keywords: | pacific; private sector; PSDI; state-owned enterprises; business law reform; financing growth; economic growth; financial services; public–private partnerships; women's economic empowerment; progress report; cook islands; fiji; kiribati; marshall islands; federated states of micronesia; nauru; palau; papua new guinea; samoa; solomon islands; timor-leste; tuvalu; tonga; vanuatu |
| Date: | 2016–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:asd:wpaper:rpt167908-2&r=pay |
| By: | Hernandez-Chanto, Allan |
| Abstract: | There have been many episodes in history where low-denomination money holdings have been exchanged with a premium over its face value. The most recent occurred in Panama only twenty five years ago, under a modern banking system. In such episodes, even where there is an entity capable to provide convertibility of money holdings at a fixed rate, and when agents expect this rate to prevail in the long run, arbitrage possibilities in the denomination of money arise as a consequence of a shortage of liquid assets and the presence of low prices in the economy. Despite of its relevance and recurrence, this phenomenon cannot be explained by current models of fiat money. To explain it we need a model where: (i) fiat money comes in different denominations which are used as a medium of exchange, (ii) there is an entity that provides convertibility of denominations at fixed rate, (iii) the natural rate is a feasible equilibrium of the model, and (iv) there are parameterizations where low denomination money holdings are given an extrinsic value. In this paper we build a money search model with all this characteristics and determine theoretically the specific conditions under which such equilibrium naturally arises. |
| Keywords: | Convertibility, Extrinsic value, Money holdings, Poisson technology |
| JEL: | E50 E52 |
| Date: | 2016–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:72348&r=pay |
| By: | Budzinski, Oliver; Köhler, Karoline Henrike |
| Abstract: | Dominant or apparently dominant internet platform increasingly become subject to both antitrust investigations and further-reaching political calls for regulation. While Google is currently in the focus of the discussion, the next candidate is already on the horizon - the ubiquitous online trading platform Amazon. Competitors and suppliers but also famous economists like Paul Krugman unite in criticizing Amazon's market power and alleged abuse of it. In this paper, we collect the multitude of allegations against Amazon and categorize them according to types of potential anticompetitive conduct or types of market failure. We provide an economic analysis of these allegations based upon economic theory as well as publicly available information and data. As one of our main results, we find that the most severe allegations against Amazon do not hold from an economic perspective and, consequently, do not warrant regulation or other drastic interventions (like breaking the company up). However, several areas of conduct, in particular, the use of best price clauses and the (anti-) competitive interplay of Amazon and the major publishers in the e-book market require competition policy action. The standard antitrust instruments, enriched with modern economic theory, should suffice to disincentivize the identified anticompetitive conduct for now. |
| Keywords: | antitrust,internet,platform economics,media economics,competition policy,innovation,Amazon,Google,e-books,book industry,best-price clauses,abuse of dominance,pricing,regulation |
| JEL: | K21 L41 L42 L81 K23 L50 L82 L12 D40 L25 Z11 B52 L86 M21 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:97&r=pay |
| By: | Elie Bouri (USEK Business School, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon); Luis A. Gil-Alana (University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain); Rangan Gupta (University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); David Roubaud (Montpellier Business School, Montpellier, France) |
| Abstract: | Motivated by the emergence of Bitcoin as a speculative financial investment, the purpose of this paper is to examine the persistence in the level and volatility of Bitcoin price, accounting for the impact of structural breaks. Using parametric and semiparametric techniques, we find strong evidence in favour of a permanency of the shocks and lack of mean reversion in the level series. We also reveal evidence of structural changes in the dynamics of Bitcoin. After accounting for the structural breaks in the level series, evidence of mean reversion is uncovered in some cases. Further analyses show evidence of a long memory in the two measures of volatility (absolute and the squared returns), whereas some cases of short memory are revealed in the squared returns series in particular. Practical implications are discussed on the inefficiency in the Bitcoin market and its importance for Bitcoin users and investors. |
| Keywords: | Bitcoin, Long memory, Structural Breaks |
| JEL: | C22 G1 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201654&r=pay |