IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ijc/ijcjou/y2020q2a7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Surprising Recovery of Currency Usage

Author

Listed:
  • Jonathan Ashworth

    (Independent Economist)

  • Charles A.E. Goodhart

    (London School of Economics)

Abstract

Currency usage began a long trend decline in the decades after World War II. This was expected to continue, and even accelerate, owing to payment technology innovations. Surprisingly, however, such usage as a percentage of GDP stopped falling and has increased quite sharply in recent years in most countries, with Sweden the major outlier. We examine to what extent this may have been due to increasing interest elasticity, nearing the zero lower bound, and also to rising tax evasion, as indirect taxes rise. We also show how currency holdings increased temporarily as the financial crisis struck in 2008.

Suggested Citation

  • Jonathan Ashworth & Charles A.E. Goodhart, 2020. "The Surprising Recovery of Currency Usage," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(3), pages 239-277, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ijc:ijcjou:y:2020:q:2:a:7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb20q2a7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.ijcb.org/journal/ijcb20q2a7.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Bagnall & David Bounie & Kim P. Huynh & Anneke Kosse & Tobias Schmidt & Scott Schuh, 2016. "Consumer Cash Usage: A Cross-Country Comparison with Payment Diary Survey Data," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 1-61, December.
    2. Ruchir Agarwal & Miles Kimball, 2015. "Breaking Through the Zero Lower Bound," IMF Working Papers 2015/224, International Monetary Fund.
    3. J Ashworth, 2013. "quantitative easing by the major western central banks during the global financial crisis," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Gene Amromin & Sujit Chakravorti, 2009. "Whither Loose Change? The Diminishing Demand for Small‐Denomination Currency," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(2‐3), pages 315-335, March.
    5. John Bagnall & David Bounie & Kim P. Huynh & Anneke Kosse & Tobias Schmidt & Scott Schuh, 2016. "Consumer Cash Usage: A Cross-Country Comparison with Payment Diary Survey Data," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(4), pages 1-61, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ashworth, J. & Goodhart, C. A. E., 2020. "The surprising recovery of currency usage," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 105303, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Schmidt-Dengler, Philipp & Stix, Helmut & Huynh, Kim P., 2014. "The Role of Card Acceptance in the Transaction Demand for Money," CEPR Discussion Papers 10183, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Immordino, Giovanni & Russo, Francesco Flaviano, 2018. "Cashless payments and tax evasion," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 36-43.
    4. Camila Figueroa & Michael Pedersen, 2017. "Forecasting Demand for Denominations of Chilean Coins and Banknotes," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 799, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Schneider, Friedrich, 2017. "Restricting or Abolishing Cash: An Effective Instrument for Fighting the Shadow Economy, Crime and Terrorism?," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162914, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    6. Geoffrey R. Dunbar, 2019. "Demographics and the demand for currency," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1375-1409, October.
    7. Huynh, Kim P. & Schmidt-Dengler, Philipp & Stix, Helmut, 2014. "Whenever and Wherever: The Role of Card Acceptance in the Transaction Demand for Money," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 472, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    8. Francesco Flaviano Russo, 2020. "Cash Thresholds, Cash Expenditure and Tax Evasion," CSEF Working Papers 579, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    9. Arango, Carlos & Huynh, Kim P. & Sabetti, Leonard, 2015. "Consumer payment choice: Merchant card acceptance versus pricing incentives," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 130-141.
    10. Camila Figueroa S. & Michael Pedersen, 2019. "A system for forecasting Chilean cash demand – the role of forecast combinations," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 22(2), pages 040-068, August.
    11. Heng Chen & Marie-Hélène Felt & Kim P. Huynh, 2017. "Retail payment innovations and cash usage: accounting for attrition by using refreshment samples," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 180(2), pages 503-530, February.
    12. Janet Hua Jiang & Enchuan Shao, 2014. "Understanding the Cash Demand Puzzle," Staff Working Papers 14-22, Bank of Canada.
    13. Fernando Alvarez & Francesco Lippi & Roberto Robatto, 2019. "Cost of Inflation in Inventory Theoretical Models," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 32, pages 206-226, April.
    14. Rösl, Gerhard & Seitz, Franz & Tödter, Karl-Heinz, 2017. "Doing away with cash? The welfare costs of abolishing cash," IMFS Working Paper Series 112, Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS).
    15. Liñares-Zegarra, José M. & Willesson, Magnus, 2021. "The effects of negative interest rates on cash usage: Evidence for EU countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    16. Rösl, Gerhard & Seitz, Franz & Tödter, Karl-Heinz, 2017. "Besser ohne Bargeld? Gesamtwirtschaftliche Wohlfahrtsverluste der Bargeldabschaffung [Doing away with cash? The macroeconomic welfare costs of abolishing cash]," Weidener Diskussionspapiere 58, University of Applied Sciences Amberg-Weiden (OTH).
    17. Constanza Martínez Ventura, 2019. "The use of cash and debit cards as payment instruments in Colombia," Lecturas de Economía, Universidad de Antioquia, Departamento de Economía, issue 90, pages 71-95, Enero - J.
    18. Antón, Arturo & Hernández-Trillo, Fausto & Ventosa-Santaulària, Daniel, 2021. "(In)Effective tax enforcement and demand for cash," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    19. Dominika Kolcunova & Tomas Havranek, 2018. "Estimating the Effective Lower Bound on the Czech National Bank’s Policy Rate," Czech Journal of Economics and Finance (Finance a uver), Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, vol. 68(6), pages 550-577, December.
    20. Jobst, Clemens & Stix, Helmut, 2017. "Assessing recent increases in cash demand," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162916, Deutsche Bundesbank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E40 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - General
    • E49 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Other
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative

    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:ijc:ijcjou:y:2020:q:2:a:7. 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: Bank for International Settlements (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.ijcb.org/ .

    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.