Payment Innovations, the Shadow Economy and Cash Demand of Households in Euro Area Countries

Hans-Eggert Reimers, Friedrich Schneider () and Franz Seitz

No 8574, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We analyze for the first time cash holdings of private households in all euro area countries from 2002 to 2019 within a panel cointegration framework. Besides the traditional determinants of cash demand like transactions balances and opportunity costs, we concentrate on cashless payments media as substitutes to cash payments and the role of the shadow economy. Moreover, we take due account of country-specific repercussions of the financial and economic crisis of 2008/09, time series properties and distinguish between small and large countries. We find a significant and positive relationship among households' cash holdings, the volume of transactions and the size of the shadow economy irrespective of country size for all euro area countries over our sample period. Additionally, there is a substitution relationship between the accessibility and availability of cashless payments media and cash demand. And a decreasing number of ATMs reduces cash holdings. These results have important political and financial implications.

Keywords: cash; cashless payments; shadow economy; cash demand function; panel cointegration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 E41 E58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-eec, nep-iue, nep-mac, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8574

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