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The authors model side payments in a competitive credit‐card market. If competitive retailers absorb the cost of accepting credit cards by charging a higher goods price to everyone, then someone must subsidize convenience users of credit cards to prevent them from defecting to merchants who do not accept cards. The side payment could be financed by card users who roll over balances and pay interest. It is rational for them to do so if their subjective discount rates are high enough. Charging different prices to different customers based on the underlying cost of the payment instrument would be more efficient for retailers. However, banks may offer incentives to attract convenience users because some of them may become interest‐paying users (“revolvers”) in the future.

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T he recent financial crisis and recession inflicted substantial economic and financial harm on millions of families, but the effects were not uniform across the population. The hardest-hit groups included individuals or families who were the young, the less educated, and members of a minority group. Unemployment rates among all these groups increased sharply and remain elevated more than four years into the recovery (Bureau of Labor Statistics, various years; Figure 1). 1 Unfortunately, many families with the greatest exposure to the economic dislocations of the recent recession also had very risky balance sheets beforehand that were characterized by low levels of liquid assets, high portfolio concentrations in housing, and relatively high balance-sheet leverage. The authors argue that economic vulnerability and risky balance sheets are correlated because they derive from common factors. These factors include a low stock of human capital, inexperience (relative youth), and, in some cases, the legacy of discrimination in housing, education, and employment. Innate cognitive ability interacts with formal education and on-the-job experience to build human capital, while the legacy of discrimination may attenuate the translation of cognitive ability and education into human capital. Acquiring financial knowledge of risk management also requires time and experience and is more valuable to those with high levels of human capital and savings available to invest. Given the combination of these factors, individuals and families who are young, less cognitively able, and/or members of historically disadvantaged minorities are more likely to be economically vulnerable and to hold risky balance sheets because they lack financial knowledge and experience. Moreover, balance sheets of economically vulnerable families before the recent recession were especially risky after a decade of financial liberalization and innovation that increased the access of such families to homeownership and historically high leverage. Economically vulnerable families should avoid "doubling down" with risky balance sheets to enhance their future household financial stability. (JEL D14, D11, D12) Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, September/October 2013, 95(5), pp. 361-88.