New York — Everywhere you look, someone is trying to kill off cash. India eliminated 23-billion notes from circulation to fight tax evasion and corruption. Bitcoin and mobile payments are still hyped as the wave of the future. Credit cards offer increasingly aggressive rewards. An influential US economist wants to stop printing bank notes of $20 and above. His goal: help central banks impose negative interest rates as monetary policy. But try as everyone may, cash registers are still bursting with paper and metal money. Cash is alive and well, according to a new study of the spending habits of more than 18,000 people in seven countries. "Many have predicted and espoused the view that cash is increasingly disappearing as a payment instrument," the authors write. "However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, we would say that the reports of the death of cash have been greatly exaggerated." The value of dollars and euros in circulation has doubled since 2005, to $1.48-trillion and €1.1-trillion,...
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