Premium
Where’s the Money? An Investigation into the Whereabouts and Uses of Australian Banknotes
Author(s) -
Finlay Richard,
Staib Andrew,
Wakefield Max
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
australian economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.308
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-8462
pISSN - 0004-9018
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8462.12342
Subject(s) - issuer , shadow (psychology) , database transaction , business , transactional leadership , transaction data , economics , advertising , commerce , finance , management , database , computer science , psychology , psychotherapist
Abstract The Reserve Bank of Australia is the sole issuer and redeemer of Australian banknotes, but between issuance and destruction there is little information about where banknotes go or what they are used for. We estimate the whereabouts and uses of Australian banknotes, and find that 15–35 per cent are used to facilitate legitimate transactions, 4–7 per cent are used for transactions in the shadow economy, while the remainder are non‐transactional. The vast majority of non‐transactional banknotes are likely to be hoarded, and we estimate that 5–10 per cent of outstanding banknotes are lost or collected.