Preserving Competition in Electronic Home Banking
从经济学角度分析电子家庭银行的高固定成本与低边际成本特征，论证阻止微软收购Intuit有利于维护竞争，对关注反垄断与金融科技政策的读者有参考价值。
heavily based on paper checks. Consumers write around fifty billion checks per year. About twenty billion of these are written at home to pay bills, and about fifteen billion of these are mailed, at a cost of thirty-two cents. It is commonly estimated that the total costs of writing, mailing, and processing a check costs consumers, banks, and payees about $1, not including the time of the check writer. Electronic home banking and bill paying has long held the promise of reducing these costs. A principal justification for the proposed acquisition of Intuit by Microsoft was to hasten the arrival of electronic home banking. It is my position that the public interest was well served by the actions of the Department of Justice to prevent the merger. The problem of electronic home banking is economic the technology exists to allow much banking activity to take place at home at very low marginal costs. The fixed costs are high, however, and with a low volume of usage, average costs are too high for most consumers and payees. Electronic home banking, as generally conceived, does not involve cutting-edge technology or sophisticated services. Most planning involves only bill paying and ability access account information on-line. This usually includes the ability to transfer funds between accounts, and perhaps to open CDs. Other functions are further down the road, such as the ability to replenish a stored-value card, or the ability to receive bills electronically. It should be noted that while access to account information obviously requires some connection with the bank, bill paying is not on-line with the bank and, in fact, does not even need the participation or cooperation of the bank. Electronic home banking involves several pieces and the combined efforts of several participants.