The Move Toward a Cashless Society: Calculating the Costs and Benefits

While the "cashless society" has not yet fully become a reality, payment choices by consumers and merchants have been moving the U.S. economy in that direction slowly and steadily over the past five decades. In this study, a companion paper to Garcia-Swartz (2006a) in this volume, we lay out the detailed cost and benefit calculations behind our analysis of the steady changes in transaction payment methods.