The Bank of Canada has issued a Staff Discussion Paper that focuses on the retail side of the cash distribution system examining changes in cash accessibility as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professors Gerhard Rösl and Franz Seitz have written a paper in which they compare the handling of the 1929 depression, the 2008/9 recession, India’s demonetisation exercise and Greece’s experience in their sovereign debt crisis and financial challenges starting 2009 until today.

The Bank of Canada (BOC) has issued a paper investigating the relationship of Bitcoin owners with cash. The paper is written in the context of understanding whether private digital currencies will make serious inroads into the use of cash, particularly for transactions.

Forecasting cash in circulation (CIC) is a key activity of central banks as it is an important variable in monetary policymaking, affecting overall liquidity in the economy and guiding their currency issuance operations.

The National Bank of Denmark has issued an analysis paper looking at the use of cash in society. Denmark has one of the lowest levels of cash usage in Europe with only Norway and Sweden with lower levels. While the pandemic has reduced cash usage, there are clear signs that Danes still value cash.

The Bank of Canada runs two ‘Cash Alternative Surveys’ in April and August each year of a representative sample of 2,500–3,500 Canadians. It combines this with data from its Bank Note Distribution System to monitor the use of cash.

In November 2021 the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB) Working Group on Access and Acceptance of Cash ERPB issued its report.

A paper by the Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), ‘Cash: A Blessing or a Curse?’, examines what happened in Mexico when changes to cash availability were made.

There is an assumption that cash is a driver of the shadow economy, but this is not proven by empirical evidence. Occasional paper 649 from the Banca d’Italia used the decision to increase the limit on cash usage as an opportunity to study what happened to cash and the shadow economy.

Last month we reviewed the Bank of Canada’s report on the impact of the second wave of COVID-19 on cash usage in Canada. This month we consider a report using data from four countries, the UK, the US, Spain and Mexico, as well as the EU.