IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v33y2007i1p139-146.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time to Eliminate the Penny from the U.S. Coinage System: New Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Whaples

    (Wake Forest University)

Abstract

I argue that the U.S. Mint should stop producing pennies. The Mint is losing money on penny production and new evidence from a multi-state convenience store chain shows that eliminating the penny will not impose a “rounding tax” on consumers. Eliminating the penny will have a negligible impact on inflation and on convenience store costs and profits, but it will save time for customers and clerks, which may be worth about $730 million per year.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Whaples, 2007. "Time to Eliminate the Penny from the U.S. Coinage System: New Evidence," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 139-146, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:33:y:2007:i:1:p:139-146
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume33/V33N1P139_146.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820-1860," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number marg00-1, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marko Rašeta, 2017. "Eliminating the Fractional Part of Currency from Circulation (Pennies, Cents, Paras, Kopeikas). An Analytic Study," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 43(3), pages 520-529, June.
    2. Andrew Keinsley, 2013. "Do You Mind if I Round?: Eliminating the Penny A Structural Analysis," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 201309, University of Kansas, Department of Economics.
    3. Prescott, Brian C. & Shy, Oz, 2023. "Cash payments and the penny policy debate," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 208(C), pages 80-94.
    4. Erika Leszkó, 2009. "Rounding is not to be feared," MNB Bulletin (discontinued), Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 4(2), pages 14-21, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    2. Chulhee Lee, 2003. "Prior Exposure to Disease and Later Health and Mortality. Evidence from Civil War Medical Records," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Labor Force Participation over the Life Cycle: Evidence from the Past, pages 51-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Salisbury, Laura, 2014. "Selective migration, wages, and occupational mobility in nineteenth century America," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 40-63.
    4. Scott A. Carson, 2010. "Nineteenth Century US African-American and White Female Statures: Insight from US Prison Records," CESifo Working Paper Series 3169, CESifo.
    5. Margo, Robert A., 2016. "Obama, Katrina, and the Persistence of Racial Inequality," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 301-341, June.
    6. Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2008. "The U.S. Westward Expansion," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 81-110, February.
    7. Jeremy Atack & Robert A. Margo & Paul W. Rhode, 2024. "Wage Inequality in American Manufacturing, 1820–1940: New Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: The Economic History of American Inequality: New Evidence and Perspectives, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. David Autor & Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2020. "Extending the Race between Education and Technology," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 347-351, May.
    9. Matthias Cinyabuguma & Bill Lord & Christelle Viauroux, 2009. "Schooling, Fertility, and Married Female Labor Supply: What Role for Health?," UMBC Economics Department Working Papers 09-108, UMBC Department of Economics.
    10. Clay, Karen & Wright, Gavin, 2005. "Order without law? Property rights during the California gold rush," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 155-183, April.
    11. Jason Long & Joseph Ferrie, 2005. "A Tale of Two Labor Markets: Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Britain and the U.S. Since 1850," NBER Working Papers 11253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sukkoo Kim, 2007. "Immigration, Industrial Revolution and Urban Growth in the United States, 1820-1920: Factor Endowments, Technology and Geography," NBER Working Papers 12900, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2000. "Rising Wage Dispersion Across American Manufacturing Establishments, 1850-1880," NBER Working Papers 7932, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Collins, William J. & Margo, Robert A., 2006. "Historical Perspectives on Racial Differences in Schooling in the United States," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 107-154, Elsevier.
    15. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman, 2000. "Downtime in American Manufacturing Industry: 1870 and 1880," Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers 0048, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics.
    16. Myung Soo Cha, 2012. "Wage Convergence and Divergence in East Asia, 1900-39," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd12-253, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    17. Dupraz, Yannick & Ferrara, Andreas, 2021. "Fatherless: The Long-Term Effects of Losing a Father in the U.S. Civil War," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 538, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    18. Jeremy Atak & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2001. "Part-Year Operation in 19th Century American Manufacturing: Evidence from the 1870 and 1880 Censuses," Macroeconomics 0105001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Geloso, Vincent & Kufenko, Vadim & Arsenault-Morin, Alex P., 2023. "The lesser shades of labor coercion: The impact of seigneurial tenure in nineteenth-century Quebec," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    20. Jeremy Atack & Fred Bateman & Robert A. Margo, 2003. "Capital Deepening in American Manufacturing, 1850-1880," NBER Working Papers 9923, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Penny debate in the United States in Wikipedia English

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:33:y:2007:i:1:p:139-146. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.