[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bca/bocawp/17-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cash Versus Card: Payment Discontinuities and the Burden of Holding Coins

Author

Listed:
  • Heng Chen
  • Kim Huynh
  • Oz Shy
Abstract
Cash is the preferred method of payment for small value transactions generally less than $25. We provide insight to this finding with a new theoretical model that characterizes and compares consumers’ costs of paying with cash to paying with cards for each transaction. Our novel method accounts for how much change is received in the form of banknotes and metal coins, assuming that the weight and size of coins are inconvenient to carry. We use the regression discontinuity design (RDD) approach to estimate the model using the 2013 Bank of Canada Method-of-Payments (MOP) Survey and find a significant number of cash users who switch to paying with debit or credit cards at transaction values marginally above $5 and $10. We attribute this finding to the burden of receiving coins as change associated with the currency denomination structure. Our proposed methodology is general and can be applied to other countries and institutional details.

Suggested Citation

  • Heng Chen & Kim Huynh & Oz Shy, 2017. "Cash Versus Card: Payment Discontinuities and the Burden of Holding Coins," Staff Working Papers 17-47, Bank of Canada.
    • Handle: RePEc:bca:bocawp:17-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/swp2017-47.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Klee, Elizabeth, 2008. "How people pay: Evidence from grocery store data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 526-541, April.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Simon, John & Smith, Kylie & West, Tim, 2010. "Price incentives and consumer payment behaviour," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1759-1772, August.
    5. Ivan A Canay & Vishal Kamat, 2018. "Approximate Permutation Tests and Induced Order Statistics in the Regression Discontinuity Design," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1577-1608.
    6. Naoki Wakamori & Angelika Welte, 2017. "Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(1), pages 115-169, February.
    7. Ulf Von Kalckreuth & Tobias Schmidt & Helmut Stix, 2014. "Using Cash to Monitor Liquidity: Implications for Payments, Currency Demand, and Withdrawal Behavior," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(8), pages 1753-1786, December.
    8. Van Hove, Leo, 2001. "Optimal Denominations for Coins and Bank Notes: In Defense of the Principle of Least Effort," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(4), pages 1015-1021, November.
    9. Scott L. Fulford & Claire Greene & William Murdock, 2015. "U.S. consumer holdings and use of $1 Bills," Research Data Report 15-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Edward S. Knotek, 2011. "Convenient Prices and Price Rigidity: Cross-Sectional Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 1076-1086, August.
    13. Manjong Lee & Neil Wallace & Tao Zhu, 2005. "Modeling Denomination Structures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 949-960, May.
    14. Fujiki, Hiroshi & Tanaka, Migiwa, 2017. "Choice of payment instrument for low-value transactions in Japan," International Cash Conference 2017 – War on Cash: Is there a Future for Cash? 162909, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    15. Imbens, Guido W. & Lemieux, Thomas, 2008. "Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 615-635, February.
    16. Pidong Huang & Yoske Igarashi, 2013. "Why Ten $1’s Are Not Treated as a $10," Discussion Papers 1310, University of Exeter, Department of Economics.
    17. Telser, L. G., 1995. "Optimal denominations for coins and currency," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 425-427, October.
    18. Christopher Henry & Kim Huynh & Rallye Shen, 2015. "2013 Methods-of-Payment Survey Results," Discussion Papers 15-4, Bank of Canada.
    19. Lee, David S. & Card, David, 2008. "Regression discontinuity inference with specification error," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 655-674, February.
    20. Schuh, Scott & Stavins, Joanna, 2010. "Why are (some) consumers (finally) writing fewer checks? The role of payment characteristics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1745-1758, August.
    21. Joshua D. Angrist & Victor Lavy, 1999. "Using Maimonides' Rule to Estimate the Effect of Class Size on Scholastic Achievement," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(2), pages 533-575.
    22. Knotek II, Edward S., 2008. "Convenient prices, currency, and nominal rigidity: Theory with evidence from newspaper prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1303-1316, October.
    23. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Rocío Titiunik, 2015. "Optimal Data-Driven Regression Discontinuity Plots," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(512), pages 1753-1769, December.
    24. Wallace, Neil & Zhu, Tao, 2004. "A commodity-money refinement in matching models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 117(2), pages 246-258, August.
    25. Lee, David S., 2008. "Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 675-697, February.
    26. Andrew Chesher, 2003. "Identification in Nonseparable Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1405-1441, September.
    27. Ben Fung & Kim Huynh & Gerald Stuber, 2015. "The Use of Cash in Canada," Bank of Canada Review, Bank of Canada, vol. 2015(Spring), pages 45-56.
    28. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    29. Wang, Zhu & Wolman, Alexander L., 2016. "Payment choice and currency use: Insights from two billion retail transactions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 94-115.
    30. Matzkin, Rosa L., 2007. "Nonparametric identification," Handbook of Econometrics, in: J.J. Heckman & E.E. Leamer (ed.), Handbook of Econometrics, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 73, Elsevier.
    31. Angela Redish & Warren E. Weber, 2011. "A model of commodity money with minting and melting," Staff Report 460, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    32. 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.
    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. Snir, Avichai & Chen, Haipeng (Allan) & Levy, Daniel, 2022. "Zero-Ending Prices, Cognitive Convenience, and Price Rigidity," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 203, pages 519-542.
    2. Claire Greene & Oz Shy, 2020. "How Consumers Get Cash: Evidence from a Diary Survey," Consumer Payments Research Data Reports 2019-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    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. Garín, Julio & Lastrapes, William D. & Lester, Robert, 2021. "On the welfare effects of phasing out paper currency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    5. Martin Hauptfleisch, 2019. "Financial Decision-Making Using Data," PhD Thesis, Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney, number 6-2019, January-A.
    6. Ardvin Kester S. Ong & Yogi Tri Prasetyo & Kerr Lorenzo Picazo & Kim Aaron Salvador & Bobby Ardiansyah Miraja & Yoshiki B. Kurata & Thanatorn Chuenyindee & Reny Nadlifatin & Anak Agung Ngurah Perwira , 2021. "Gym-Goers Preference Analysis of Fitness Centers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conjoint Analysis Approach for Business Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-17, September.
    7. Hiroshi Fujiki, 2023. "Attributes needed for Japan’s central bank digital currency," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 74(1), pages 117-175, January.
    8. Shy, Oz, 2020. "How currency denomination and the ATM affect the way we pay," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    9. Geneviève Vallée, 2018. "How Long Does It Take You to Pay? A Duration Study of Canadian Retail Transaction Payment Times," Staff Working Papers 18-46, Bank of Canada.
    10. Christopher Henry & Doina Rusu & Matthew Shimoda, 2024. "2022 Methods-of-Payment Survey Report: Cash Use Over 13 Years," Discussion Papers 2024-01, Bank of Canada.
    11. ETTIS Saïd Aboubaker & ELDABET Mahmoud Mohamed, 2022. "The Move Towards Cashless Society: How To Improve Consumers’ Use Of Bank Cards In Retail Stores?," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 17(1), pages 24-10, April.
    12. de Blanes Sebastián, María García & Antonovica, Arta & Sarmiento Guede, José Ramón, 2023. "What are the leading factors for using Spanish peer-to-peer mobile payment platform Bizum? The applied analysis of the UTAUT2 model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    13. Aurazo, Jose & Vega, Milton, 2021. "Why people use digital payments: Evidence from micro data in Peru," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 2(4).

    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. Shy, Oz, 2020. "How currency denomination and the ATM affect the way we pay," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    2. Arango-Arango, Carlos A. & Bouhdaoui, Yassine & Bounie, David & Eschelbach, Martina & Hernandez, Lola, 2018. "Cash remains top-of-wallet! International evidence from payment diaries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 38-48.
    3. Martin Brown & Nicole Hentschel & Hannes Mettler & Helmut Stix, 2020. "Financial Innovation, Payment Choice and Cash Demand - Causal Evidence from the Staggered Introduction of Contactless Debit Cards," Working Papers on Finance 2002, University of St. Gallen, School of Finance.
    4. Martin Brown & Nicole Hentschel & Hannes Mettler & Helmut Stix, 2020. "Financial Innovation, Payment Choice and Cash Demand – Causal Evidence from the Staggered Introduction of Contactless Debit Cards (Martin Brown,Nicole Hentschel, Hannes Mettler, Helmut Stix)," Working Papers 230, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    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.
    6. 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.
    7. Shy, Oz, 2021. "Cashless stores and cash users," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 622-638.
    8. Naoki Wakamori & Angelika Welte, 2017. "Why Do Shoppers Use Cash? Evidence from Shopping Diary Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(1), pages 115-169, February.
    9. Chen, Heng & Fan, Yanqin, 2019. "Identification and wavelet estimation of weighted ATE under discontinuous and kink incentive assignment mechanisms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(2), pages 476-502.
    10. Tamás Briglevics & Scott Schuh, 2020. "This Is What's in Your Wallet...and Here's How You Use It," Working Papers 20-04, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    11. Kim Huynh & Gradon Nicholls & Oleksandr Shcherbakov, 2019. "Explaining the Interplay Between Merchant Acceptance and Consumer Adoption in Two-Sided Markets for Payment Methods," Staff Working Papers 19-32, Bank of Canada.
    12. Jonker, Nicole & van der Cruijsen, Carin & Bijlsma, Michiel & Bolt, Wilko, 2022. "Pandemic payment patterns," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    13. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    14. Fung, Ben & Huynh, Kim P. & Nield, Kerry & Welte, Angelika, 2018. "Merchant acceptance of cash and credit cards at the point of sale," Journal of Payments Strategy & Systems, Henry Stewart Publications, vol. 12(2), pages 150-165, July.
    15. Blaise Melly & Rafael Lalive, 2020. "Estimation, Inference, and Interpretation in the Regression Discontinuity Design," Diskussionsschriften dp2016, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft.
    16. Joanna Stavins, 2017. "How do consumers make their payment choices?," Research Data Report 17-1, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    17. Fujiki, Hiroshi & Tanaka, Migiwa, 2018. "How do we choose to pay using evolving retail payment technologies? Evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 85-99.
    18. Aurazo, Jose & Vega, Milton, 2021. "Why people use digital payments: Evidence from micro data in Peru," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 2(4).
    19. Geneviève Vallée, 2018. "How Long Does It Take You to Pay? A Duration Study of Canadian Retail Transaction Payment Times," Staff Working Papers 18-46, Bank of Canada.
    20. Adam C. Sales & Ben B. Hansen, 2020. "Limitless Regression Discontinuity," Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, , vol. 45(2), pages 143-174, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bank notes; Econometric and statistical methods;

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • E42 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Monetary Sytsems; Standards; Regimes; Government and the Monetary System

    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:bca:bocawp:17-47. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bocgvca.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.