Authors:

  • Kenneth Rogoff

Excerpt

Why shredding $100 bills could be great for the economy. Kenneth Rogoff, September 17, 2016, Video, "While more than half of all transactions in the US are electronic—think debit cards, Apple Pay and Venmo—there’s still a record $1.4 trillion in physical currency, from pennies to $100 bills, circulating in the global economy. That’s almost double the amount from a decade ago, and about 80% of that cash is in $100 bills. These large bills could be making us poorer and less safe, says Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard economist and author of the new book “The Curse of Cash.” For Rogoff, the benefits of phasing out both $50 and $100 bills are two-fold: It would hamper criminal activity and aid monetary policy." Link