Fumiko Hayashi examines which of two payment methods—cash or debit cards—is more costly for merchants to accept in person six countries: the United States, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. She finds that cards have been than cash States recent years, while has become other five countries. Two factors explain this difference. First, although interchange fees are just one compo...

a r t i c l e i n f o The rapid development of information technology enables an increasing number of consumers to search and book products/services online first and then to consume them in brick-and-mortar stores. This new e-commerce model is called online to offline (O2O) e-commerce and has received significant managerial and academic attention. Compared with many extant e-commerce models (i....

Although the importance of merchant guilds for the commercial development of Europe is beyond doubt, scholars do not agree about why they emerged, persisted, and ultimately declined between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Historical studies usually focus on individual cases and idiosyncratic circumstances that restrict comparisons, whereas economic approaches based on game or contract th...

Food is one of the basic needs for human life. Agriculture has been seen as primary occupation in Tamil life since earliest times. A system selling manufactured goods through barter was observed. Business basis economic development country. Merchants were called by their profession. The currency evolved systematically response to time environment and demand. During Sangam period, merchants who ...

We present new micropayment schemes that are more efficient and user friendly than previous ones. These schemes reduce bank processing costs by several orders of magnitude, while preserving a simple interface for both users and merchants. The schemes utilize a probabilistic deposit protocol that, in some of the schemes, may be entirely hidden from the users.