Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: A Conference Summary Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: A Conference Summary

By Marianne Crowe, Scott Schuh, and Joanna Stavins

The Emerging Payments Research Group (EPRG) at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston sponsored a new conference, "Consumer Behavior and Payment Choice: How and Why Do Consumers Choose Their Payment Methods?" on October 27-28, 2005, at the Boston Fed. The conference brought together a diverse set of participants from the academic, private, and public sectors. This paper provides a summary and overview of the conference. Key conclusions are that the consumer's decision-making process concerning payment choice is quite complex, that standard economic models have difficulty incorporating this complexity, that additional research-especially interdisciplinary research-into consumer choice of payment method is needed, and that this conference was an important step in that direction.

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