Using an online experiment, we examine to what extent people are ready to bear negative interest rates (NIR hereafter) on their savings. We find some tolerance to NIR, i.e. people being willing to let money in the bank, rather than spend it, and thereby accepting to have less at some later time...

The recent implementation of negative interest rates (NIR) by central and commercial banks invites empirical scrutiny of how people would react to this atypical financial policy where one has to pay to let money in the bank. Economic thinking on this issue posits that people would not tolerate...