مشوق های قیمت و رفتار پرداخت مصرف کننده

In this paper we estimate the effect of particular price incentives on consumer payment patterns using transaction-level data. We find that participation in a loyalty program and access to an interest-free period tend to increase credit card use at the expense of alternative payment methods, such as debit cards and cash. Interestingly though, the pattern of substitution from cash and debit cards differs according to the price incentive. An implication of the findings is that the Reserve Bank reforms of the Australian payments system are likely to have influenced observed payment patterns.

Over the past decade, payment patterns in Australia have changed substantially. In line with most other countries, electronic means of payment, such as credit cards and debit cards, have grown strongly, while the number of personal cheques written per person has declined significantly (Fig. 1). Among electronic payment methods, however, there have been some interesting trends and trend reversals. For example, credit cards enjoyed remarkable rates of growth in the late 1990s, eventually overtaking debit cards as the most common form of non-cash payment. Subsequently, their rate of growth has tailed off and, more recently, there has been a switch back towards debit cards as the most common form of non-cash payment.These changes in payment method use over a period of substantial reform provide prima facie evidence that a relationship exists between price incentives and the use of particular payment methods. The aggregate data, however, are not sufficient to make more than tentative conclusions about this relationship. Data on the payments behaviour of individuals offers the prospect of obtaining a more nuanced and accurate view of the influences on payment patterns. As part of its 2007/08 review of its card-payment reforms, the Reserve Bank of Australia collected detailed data on the transaction behaviour of a broadly representative sample of 662 Australians over a two-week period in 2007. These data provide the first comprehensive transaction-level study in Australia of payment methods used by individuals, including, importantly, cash. In this paper, the data collected from this study are used to estimate econometric models of the holding of credit cards, and the use of credit cards, debit cards and cash. We use these data to examine a number of aspects of consumer payments. In particular, we consider what effect loyalty programs have on the choice of payment instruments and examine the patterns of substitution between credit cards, debit cards and cash as a result of these programs. We conduct similar analysis on the effect of access to an interest-free period. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we provide an overview of aggregate trends in the Australian payments system over the past decade and some background on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s reforms. Section 3 examines previous studies related to our paper. Section 4 discusses the data. Section 5 outlines the modelling framework and discusses the results, particularly in relation to price incentives. Section 6 concludes.

Over the past decade, the payments landscape in Australia has undergone significant change. This is consistent with the international trend towards a greater use of electronic payment instruments. But it is also likely to reflect to some extent a series of reforms in Australia which have changed the relative prices consumers face when choosing between payment methods. This paper provides estimates of how important price incentives are for influencing consumer payment patterns. We find that participation in a loyalty program and access to an interest-free period both tend to increase credit card use. The substitution patterns between credit, debit and cash found in this paper are intriguing. While interest-free periods induce substitution to credit cards from debit cards, loyalty programs induce substitution from cash. We find that for a base case consumer, with average characteristics, loyalty programs increase the probability of credit card use by 23 percentage points and reduce the probability of cash use by 14 percentage points. Debit card use is relatively unaffected by whether or not a consumer has a loyalty program. A revolver consumer is around 19 percentage points more likely to use their debit card (and 16 percentage points less likely to use their credit card) than a transactor consumer. Where there is no financial cost to accessing the line of credit because there is an interest-free period, consumers tend to use a credit card instead of a debit card; where there is a cost, in the form of interest charges, consumers are more likely to use a debit card. These estimates suggest that, even though in certain circumstances a revolver may need to use credit and can not substitute to a debit card due to lack of funds, in many cases the two instruments would seem to have a reasonable degree of substitutability. The interest-free period, however, has little significant effect on cash use, possibly because cash tends to be most commonly used for small-value transactions. Nonetheless, consumer preferences between cash and credit cards appear to be significantly affected by relatively minor price changes, such as those provided by loyalty programs. For the probability of debit card use though, we find that the loyalty program price incentive has little effect. We find that the magnitude of these results is economically significant and can help to explain aggregate trends. The estimates suggest that the introduction of loyalty programs can account for at least some of the rapid growth in credit card use observed in the second half of the 1990s. And credit card use would be noticeably lower today in the absence of loyalty programs. Regardless of the precise numerical effect, the results of this paper suggest that price incentives, and loyalty programs in particular, can be influential when it comes to consumer decisions about which payment instrument to use. Therefore, it seems reasonable to attribute at least part of the changes in payment patterns in Australia over recent years to the changed price incentives consumers face as a result of the Reserve Bank reforms.