Pundits have been predicting the death of cash for as long as the plastic card has been in existence – more than 60 years. This perception has been intensified of late by the rapid acceleration in payments innovation, driven in large part by the mobile phone, in both developed and developing...

This paper focuses on the value of consumer payments made with cash, which we refer to as “total cash spending”, and the share of total spending that is made with cash, which we refer to as the “cash-spending share”. We provide estimates of these measures of cash use for 2000-2011 and...

Based on the publicly available information on the data sources and methodology used by the Census Bureau to estimate e-commerce and physical retail sales, and based on detailed e-mail communications with the Census official responsible for the retail trade data, we found, in a version of this...

This paper reports significant discrepancies in the Census’s methods and reports of online and physical retail sales in the United States. We recommend material changes in how the Census Bureau reports e-commerce and physical sales reported to it. We also recommend that the Census commission...