Over millennia, mankind has used hard cash in various forms ranging from shells to gold coins and paper. More recently, cash has become unpopular in political circles, as it effectively restricts states’ power to tax (explicitly or via negative interest rates) or to survey and potentially...

This paper investigates the effect of electronic payments technology on firms’ tax compliance in a large developing economy. We consider India’s demonetization policy which, by limiting the availability of cash, led to a large increase in the use of electronic forms of payments. Using...

This paper investigates the effect of electronic payment technology on tax compliance in a large developing economy. We consider India's demonetization policy which, by limiting cash availability, led to a large increase in the use of electronic forms of payments. Using administrative data on...

This paper studies the implications of tax evasion for the optimal design of central bank digital currency (CBDC). I build a general equilibrium framework to explicitly allow tax evasion by agents and tax audits by a government. I find that as long as CBDC offers less anonymity than cash,...

We analyze the effect of mandatory financial transparency on corporate tax avoidance. Capital Requirements Directive IV by the European Commission required multinational banks to publish key financial and tax data in the form of public Country-by-Country Reporting. We examine tax avoidance of...