The use of payment cards, either debit or credit, is becoming more and more widespread in developed economies. Nevertheless, the use of cash remains significant. We hypothesize that the lack of card acceptance at the point of sale is a key reason why cash continues to play an important role. We...

The use of payment cards, either debit or credit, is becoming more and more widespread in developed economies. Nevertheless, the use of cash remains significant. We hypothesize that the lack of card acceptance at the point of sale is a key reason why cash continues to play an important role. We...

Standard transaction cost arguments can only partially explain why the share of cash transactions is still high in many countries. This paper shows that consumers’ desire to monitor liquidity is one of the reasons. Consumers make use of a distinctive feature of cash – a glance into one’s...