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原文搜索： chinamerica
狗主人：（kking v37）是这个原文没错,前三段一样,如果我没记错的话,后面还有,应该是讲质疑第三段传统观点的.
Despite the growing availability and acceptance of electronic payment instruments—such as credit cards, debit cards, and automated clearinghouse (ACH) payments—by far the most popular noncash payment instrument used in the United States is the paper check. In 1995, approximately 80 percent of all noncash transactions were made by check (Bank for International Settlements, forthcoming). Furthermore, although use of electronic instruments has grown in the past several years, check use has grown as well: between 1987 and 1993, the average annual number of payments per capita increased by 26 payments for electronic instruments, but by 31 payments for checks (Humphrey, Pulley, and Vesala, forthcoming). Clearly, individuals and businesses are not rapidly shifting away from checks to electronic instruments.
The popularity of checks persists even though checks cost society more to produce and process than do electronic instruments. According to standard economic theory, that may be a sign that the market for payment instruments is not working properly. In general, in an efficient market, when competing goods are available and one costs societymore, the prices of the goods will reflect the relative costs of the resources used to produce them, and the cheaper good will be substituted for the more expensive. In this way, society uses its resources to produce only the particular goods it wants in the particular amounts it wants. In other words, resources are used efficiently. When use does not shift to the cheaper good, either the goods are not close substitutes or the market has failed, and there is a potential role for a public authority to attempt to correct the failure.
Market failure is a commonly accepted view of what’s happened in the market for payment instruments. According to this view, the users of checks are the check writers. And for those individuals and businesses, the private cost, or price, of using checks has been distorted by the value of check float, or the time between the writing and clearing of a check. During that time, of course, the funds can earn interest for the check writer rather than for the check receiver. The size of this benefit is thought to have reduced the price of check use below the cost to society of producing and processing checks. Since individuals and businesses
don’t face that higher social cost, they continue to use checks despite the existence of other means of payment that are less costly to society. In short, checks are overused. |
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