IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/iccp17/162910.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Death of Cash? Not So Fast: Demand for U.S. Currency at Home and Abroad, 1990-2016

Author

Listed:
  • Judson, Ruth

Abstract

It would seem that physical currency should be fading out as the world of payments is increasingly electronic, with new technologies emerging at a rapid pace, and as governments look to restrictions on large-denomination notes as a way to reduce crime and tax evasion. Nonetheless, demand for U.S. dollar banknotes continues to grow, and consistently increases at times of crisis both within and outside the United States because it remains a desirable store of value and medium of exchange in times and places where local currency or bank deposits are inferior. After allowing for the effect of crises, demand for U.S. banknotes appears to be driven by the same factors as demand for other types of money, with no discernible downward trend. In this work, I review developments in demand for U.S. currency since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008 with a focus on some new questions. First, what are the factors driving demand for lower denominations, especially $20s, which are the most commonly used in domestic transactions? To what extent can the recent strength in demand be attributed to the long spell of very low interest rates? Finally, for the larger denominations, I revisit the question of international demand: I present the raw data available for measuring international banknote flows and presents updates on indirect methods of estimating the stock of currency held abroad. These methods continue to indicate that a large share of U.S. currency is held abroad, especially in the $100 denomination. As shown in an earlier paper, once a country or region begins using dollars, subsequent crises result in additional inflows: the dominant sources of international demand over the past two decades are the countries and regions that were known to be heavy dollar users in the early to mid-1990s. While international demand for U.S. currency eased during the early 2000s as financial conditions improved, the abrupt return to strong international demand that began nearly a decade ago with the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 has shown only limited signs of slowing. In contrast, the growth rate of demand for smaller denominations is slowing, perhaps indicating the first signs of declining domestic cash demand.

Suggested Citation

  • Judson, Ruth, 2017. "The Death of Cash? Not So Fast: Demand for U.S. Currency at Home and Abroad, 1990-2016," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162910, Deutsche Bundesbank.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:iccp17:162910
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/162910/1/Judson.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayelen Banegas & Ruth A. Judson & Charles Sims & Viktors Stebunovs, 2015. "International Dollar Flows," International Finance Discussion Papers 1144, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Ruth A. Judson & Richard D. Porter, 2010. "Estimating the volume of counterfeit U.S. currency in circulation worldwide: data and extrapolation," Policy Discussion Paper Series PDP-2010-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Theodore E. Allison & Rosanna S. Pianalto, 1997. "The issuance of series-1996 $100 Federal Reserve notes: goals, strategy, and likely results," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), vol. 83(Jul), pages 557-564, July.
    4. Kamin, Steven B. & Ericsson, Neil R., 2003. "Dollarization in post-hyperinflationary Argentina," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 185-211, April.
    5. Claire Greene & Scott Schuh & Joanna Stavins, 2016. "The 2014 survey of consumer payment choice: summary results," Research Data Report 16-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    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. Petra Dünhaupt & Hansjörg Herr, 2020. "Trade, Global Value Chains and Development: What Role for National Development Banks?," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 89(3), pages 9-33.
    2. Luca Baldo & Elisa Bonifacio & Marco Brandi & Michelina Lo Russo & Gianluca Maddaloni & Andrea Nobili & Giorgia Rocco & Gabriele Sene & Massimo Valentini, 2021. "Inside the black box: tools for understanding cash circulation," Mercati, infrastrutture, sistemi di pagamento (Markets, Infrastructures, Payment Systems) 7, Bank of Italy, Directorate General for Markets and Payment System.
    3. Benati, Luca & Lucas, Robert E. & Nicolini, Juan Pablo & Weber, Warren, 2021. "International evidence on long-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 43-63.
    4. Luca Benati & Robert E. Lucas & Juan Pablo Nicolini & Warren E. Weber, 2017. "Online Appendix for: International Evidence on Long-Run Money Demand," Working Papers 738, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    5. Katrin Assenmacher & Franz Seitz & Jörn Tenhofen, 2019. "The demand for Swiss banknotes: some new evidence," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-22, December.
    6. Antón, Arturo & Hernández-Trillo, Fausto & Ventosa-Santaulària, Daniel, 2021. "(In)Effective tax enforcement and demand for cash," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    7. Benati, Luca, 2020. "Money velocity and the natural rate of interest," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 117-134.
    8. Gautam Nair & Federico Sturzenegger, 2022. "The Global Distributive Impact of the US Inflation Shock," Working Papers 160, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    9. Claire Greene & Joanna Stavins, 2020. "The 2017 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice," Consumer Payments Research Data Reports 2018-5, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    10. Janet Hua Jiang & Enchuan Shao, 2020. "The Cash Paradox," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 177-197, April.
    11. Assenmacher, Katrin & Seitz, Franz & Tenhofen, Jörn, 2017. "The use of large denomination banknotes in Switzerland," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162917, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    12. Gautam Nair & Federico Sturzenegger, 2022. "The Global Distributive Impact of the US Inflation Shock," Working Papers 165, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Aug 2022.
    13. Remo Nyffenegger, 2022. "Central bank digital currency and bank intermediation: medium of exchange vs. savings vehicle," ECON - Working Papers 409, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Aug 2023.
    14. Zijian Wang, 2023. "Money Laundering and the Privacy Design of Central Bank Digital Currency," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 604-632, December.
    15. Claire Greene & Scott Schuh, 2017. "The 2016 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice," Research Data Report 17-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    16. André Cardoso Dias, 2019. "Estimating a country’s currency circulation within a monetary union," IFC Bulletins chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Are post-crisis statistical initiatives completed?, volume 49, Bank for International Settlements.
    17. Nizam, Ahmed Mehedi, 2021. "Redistribution of wealth through cross border financial transactions: A closer look," MPRA Paper 109374, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Ruth A. Judson, 2012. "Crisis and calm: Demand for U.S. currency at home and abroad from the fall of the Berlin Wall to 2011," International Finance Discussion Papers 1058, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    2. Arce, Oscar J., 2009. "Speculative hyperinflations and currency substitution," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(10), pages 1808-1823, October.
    3. Miguel Lebre de Freitas & Francisco José Veiga, 2006. "Currency substitution, portfolio diversification, and money demand," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(3), pages 719-743, August.
    4. repec:zbw:bofitp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201511231446 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Yinusa, Dauda Olalekan, 2008. "Between dollarization and exchange rate volatility: Nigeria's portfolio diversification option," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 811-826.
    6. Ayelen Banegas & Ruth A. Judson & Charles Sims & Viktors Stebunovs, 2015. "International Dollar Flows," International Finance Discussion Papers 1144, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    7. Winkelried, Diego & Castillo, Paul, 2010. "Dollarization persistence and individual heterogeneity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1596-1618, December.
    8. Claire Greene & Scott Schuh, 2017. "The 2016 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice," Research Data Report 17-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    9. repec:bof:bofitp:urn:nbn:fi:bof-201511231446 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Ramis Khabibullin & Alexey Ponomarenko, 2022. "An empirical behavioral model of household’s deposit dollarization," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 17(3), pages 827-847, July.
    11. Casto Martin Montero Kuscevic & Darius Daniel Martin, 2015. "Dollarization and money demand stability in Bolivia," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 116-122.
    12. Rösl, Gerhard & Seitz, Franz, 2024. "Uncertainty, politics, and crises: The case for cash," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 5(3).
    13. Garcés Díaz Daniel, 2016. "Changes in Inflation Predictability in Major Latin American Countries," Working Papers 2016-20, Banco de México.
    14. Neil R. Ericsson & Steven B. Kamin, 2008. "Constructive data mining: modeling Argentine broad money demand," International Finance Discussion Papers 943, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    15. Sell, Friedrich L., 2004. "Währungspolitik im Dienste von Entwicklung: Immer noch ein Forschungsprogramm!," Working Papers in Economics 2004,2, Bundeswehr University Munich, Economic Research Group.
    16. Oomes, Nienke & Ohnsorge, Franziska, 2005. "Money demand and inflation in dollarized economies: The case of Russia," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 462-483, September.
    17. Krislert Samphantharak & Scott Schuh & Robert M. Townsend, 2018. "Integrated Household Surveys: An Assessment Of U.S. Methods And An Innovation," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 50-80, January.
    18. Konstantin Egorov & Alexey Ponomarenko, 2021. "Review of the Bank of Russia and NES Seminar ‘Financial Dollarisation: Causes and Consequences’," Russian Journal of Money and Finance, Bank of Russia, vol. 80(2), pages 96-104, June.
    19. Ruth A. Judson, 2024. "Demand for U.S Banknotes at Home and Abroad: A Post-Covid Update," International Finance Discussion Papers 1387, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    20. Jeffrey Carpenter & Emiliano Huet-Vaughn & Peter Hans Matthews & Andrea Robbett & Dustin Beckett & Julian Jamison, 2021. "Choice Architecture to Improve Financial Decision Making," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 102-118, March.
    21. Anna Krupkina & Alexey Ponomarenko, 2017. "Deposit dollarization in emerging markets: modelling the hysteresis effect," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 41(4), pages 794-805, October.
    22. Óscar J. Arce, 2006. "Speculative hyperinflations: when can we rule them out?," Working Papers 0607, Banco de España.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    currency; banknotes; dollarization; crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • E4 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates
    • E49 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:iccp17:162910. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dbbgvde.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.