Jour Fixe - Mobile Payments

“Does MobilePay spur consumer expenditures?” with Philipp Klais (Goethe University).

Using a sample of more than 30,000 first-time MobilePay (MP) users plus a control group in a unique institutional setting of the first-time introduction of a widely-accepted mobile payment option in Germany, we show in within-subject and Diff-in-Diff settings that after MP adoption, users consume more and at a higher frequency. We document that MP is not just replacing other means of payments and that the effects are persistent. We hypothesize that this might be driven by increased convenience and a reduced pain-of-paying.