Should platforms be allowed to charge ad valorem fees?

Regulating Debit Cards: The Case of Ad Valorem Fees

Debit cards have become an indispensable part of the U.S. payments system, accounting for more than a third of consumer payments at point of sale. With this development has come controversy: Card networks charge merchants fees that merchants believe are too high. And most of the fees are ad valorem—that is, based on transaction value—rather than fixed fees per transaction. Merchants are critica...

Ad-valorem platform fees and efficient price discrimination∗

Online shopping platforms (such as Amazon and eBay) or payment card networks (such as Visa and MasterCard) serve to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers. While these platforms typically only incur small per-transaction costs, they often charge sellers a substantial proportional fee plus a small fixed transaction fee. In this paper, we investigate the implications of this use of ad...

Should the patient be allowed to die?

In considering the patient's right to a certain quality of dying, this essay outlines how the legal and ethical justifications for passive euthanasia depend on the doctrine of acts and omissions. It is suggested that this doctrine is untenable and that alternative justifications are needed. The development of the modern mechanistic approach to death is traced, showing that a possible basis for ...

Should a hunger-striking prisoner be allowed to die?

Should physicians be allowed to use alcohol while on call?

Although physician alcohol use that leads to impairment has been extensively discussed, few statements address the issue of alcohol use of physicians who are on call. In this paper the authors review recent information on physicians' perceptions of alcohol use by themselves and their colleagues while on call. It is argued that conflicts in physicians' perceptions are due to the fact that the la...