Credit Cards in the United States and Japan

The following essay is excerpted from a paper prepared during fall 2000 during the author\u27s stay in Tokyo as a visiting scholar at the Institutefor Monetary and Economic Studies at the Bank of Japan. One of the most important aspects of consumer payment systems in the United States is the widespread use of credit cards. American consumers use credit cards to pay for about one-fifth of their purchases each year. That pattern of use is not universal