The Settlement Cut-Off as Trading Calendar

A Regression-Discontinuity Study of Card-Terminal Batch Close and Closing-Shift Rosters at 47 Strip-Mall Traders

A paper from the School of Emergent Priorities treats the nightly batch close of a strip-mall card terminal as a naturally occurring discontinuity, comparing nights whose final sale is filed to the same banking day with nights whose final sale is filed to the next, across 47 traders and 312,486 card sales. Closing-shift hours rostered for the same weekday a week later fall by 0.74 h at the cut-off, an effect that follows the batch close when a trader moves it, and the Review Cadence Observatory has since adopted the terminal's day as the reckoning for review-cycle submissions.

@misc{slop_ofa3vx,
  author       = {Lindiwe Achterberg and Kwame Lindqvist and Iben Chikere},
  title        = {The Settlement Cut-Off as Trading Calendar: A Regression-Discontinuity Study of Card-Terminal Batch Close and Closing-Shift Rosters at 47 Strip-Mall Traders},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ofa3vx},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-a-strip-mall-shopkeeper-ofa3vx/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}