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Working Paper
Payment Choice and the Future of Currency: Insights from Two Billion Retail Transactions
This paper uses transaction-level data from a large discount chain together with zip-code-level explanatory variables to learn about consumer payment choices across size of transaction, location, and time. With three years of data from thousands of stores across the country, we identify important economic and demographic effects; weekly, monthly, and seasonal cycles in payments, as well as time trends and significant state-level variation that is not accounted for by the explanatory variables. We use the estimated model to forecast how the mix of consumer payments will evolve and to forecast ...
Working Paper
Two Illustrations of the Quantity Theory of Money Reloaded
In this paper, we review the relationship between inflation rates, nominal interest rates, and rates of growth of monetary aggregates for a large group of OECD countries. We conclude that the low-frequency behavior of these series maintains a close relationship, as predicted by standard quantity theory models. In an estimated model, we show those relationships to be relatively invariant to alternative frictions that can deliver very different high-frequency dynamics. We argue that these relationships are useful for policy design aimed at controlling inflation.
Working Paper
A TRACTABLE MODEL OF THE DEMAND FOR RESERVES UNDER NONLINEAR REMUNERATION SCHEMES
We propose a tractable model of the demand for reserves under nonlinear remuneration schemes that can encompass quota systems and voluntary reserve target frameworks, among other possibilities. We show how such remuneration schemes have several favorable properties regarding interest-rate control by the central bank. In particular, wider tolerance bands can reduce rate volatility due to variations in the supply of reserves, both large and small, although they may curtail trading in the interbank market.
Working Paper
Optimal Monetary Policy under Negative Interest Rate
In responding to the extremely weak global economy after the financial crisis in 2008, many industrial nations have been considering or have already implemented negative nominal interest rate policy. This situation raises two important questions for monetary theories: (i) Given the widely held doctrine of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rate, how is a negative interest rate (NIR) policy possible? (ii) Will NIR be effective in stimulating aggregate demand? (iii) Are there any new theoretical issues emerging under NIR policies? This article builds a model to show that (i) money ...
Working Paper
On the Stability of Money Demand
We show that regulatory changes that occurred in the banking sector in the early eighties, which considerably weakened Regulation Q, can explain the apparent instability of money demand during the same period. We evaluate the effects of the regulatory changes using a model that goes beyond aggregates as M1 and treats currency and different deposit types as alternative means of payments. We use the model to construct a new monetary aggregate that performs remarkably well for the entire period 1915-2012.
Report
Costs and benefits of building faster payment systems: the U.K. experience and implications for the United States
This paper studies the economic cost-benefit analysis behind the decision by the United Kingdom on how to implement its Faster Payments Service (FPS), which allows consumers and businesses to rapidly transfer money between bank accounts, and draws implications for the U.S. payments system.
Report
U.S. consumer holdings and use of $1 Bills
Small denominations play a special role in a payments ecosystem because they facilitate exchange for small-value goods and services. This report examines the $1 bill holdings of adults in the United States using data from the Diary of Consumer Payments Choice (DCPC). Simply knowing the number of $1 bills in circulation is not useful for understanding consumers' actions, since many of these bills are held by merchants. The costs and benefits to the consumer of carrying $1 bills have been largely ignored in the policy discussion of the costs of switching from dollar notes to dollar coins. ...
Journal Article
Microfoundations of Money: Why They Matter
What is the value of having microfoundations for monetary exchange in a macro model? In this article, the author attempts to answer this question by listing what he considers the major accomplishments of the field. He argues that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that microfoundations matter for many questions of first-order importance in macroeconomics.
Working Paper
Government and private e-money-like systems: federal reserve notes and national bank notes
The period from 1914 to 1935 in the United States is unique in that it was the only time that both privately issued bank notes (national bank notes) and central-bank-issued bank notes (Federal Reserve notes) were simultaneously in circulation. This paper describes some lessons relevant to e-money from the U.S. experience during this period. It argues that Federal Reserve notes were not issued to be a superior currency to national bank notes. Rather, they were issued to enable the Federal Reserve System to act as a lender of last resort in times of financial stress. It also argues that the ...
Report
U.S. consumers' holdings and use of $100 bills
Conventional wisdom asserts that $100 bills are often associated with crime and foreign cash holdings, leading some commentators to call for their elimination; in light of this proposal, it is useful to examine the legal, domestic use of cash. This report uses new data from the 2012 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC) to evaluate consumer use of $100 bills as a means of payment.