Why payment card fees are biased against retailers
通过一个标准的两边市场模型，论证了支付卡平台私下设定的费用结构明显偏向持卡人而损害零售商，导致信用卡过度使用，且该问题主要源于监管而非竞争。
I formalize the popular argument that retailers pay too much and cardholders too little to make use of payment card platforms, resulting in excessive use of cards. To do this, I analyze a standard two‐sided market model of a payment card platform. With minimal additional restrictions, the model implies that the privately set fee structure is unambiguously biased against retailers in favor of cardholders, a result that continues to hold even if the platform can perfectly price discriminate on both sides. The market failure arising is primarily a regulatory problem and does not raise any competition concerns.