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Determinants of non-cash payments in the Eurozone: Culture matters
Schrooten, Mechthild | Varmaz, Armin
Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung, Vol. 89 (2020), Iss. 4 : pp. 29–38
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Mechthild Schrooten, University of Applied Sciences Bremen, Germany
- Mechthild Schrooten is professor for Economics at the School of International Business (SiB) at Hochschule Bremen, Germany. She received his Ph.D. from the Free University Berlin. Previously, Mechthild Schrooten was Deputy Head of International Economics at the DIW Berlin and Associate professor at Hitotsubashi-University, Tokyo, Japan. She is currently working in the areas of regulation, crises and the social impact. She is speaker of Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik (“Memogruppe”).
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Armin Varmaz, Bremen University, University of Applied Sciences Bremen, Germany
- Armin Varmaz is professor for international finance at the School of International Business Bremen. Previously, he was a research assistant at the University of Bremen, a visiting researcher at Brown University and a professor of finance at the University of Freiburg. At several occasions, he was visiting professor in the USA, most recently at Northern Kentucky University. He earned the doctorate (2006) and habilitation (2017) at the University of Bremen. His research and work interests include asset pricing, security valuation, portfolio management and asset allocation, empirical capital market research, computational finance, and bank efficiency and competition. Prof. Dr. Varmaz is the author of numerous articles in well-recognized international journals and of the books “Equity Valuation: Models from Leading Investment Banks”, “Computational Finance” and “Matlab for students and professionals”.
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Abstract
Summary: Retail shops incentive contactless transactions during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Customers are asked to pay cashless to prevent contagion. Traditionally, there are large differences in the extent and acceptance of non-cash payments among nations. This paper analyzes empirically the determinants of the payment behavior in the member states of the Eurozone asking how to explain these traditional differences in non-cash payment preferences. Our basic hypothesis is that culture makes the difference across nations matter. The paper adds to the existing literature not only by focusing on the determinants of preferences for non-cash payments from a macroeconomic perspective but also by analyzing cultural factors. The payment data is gathered with the European Central Bank (ECB) and Eurostat. We examine the impact of culture on payment preferences by the means of the Hofstede indicators. Our empirical results show the importance of cultural issues to understand the acceptance of non-cash payments. In particular, the results suggest that a higher degree of uncertainty avoidance goes in line with more non-cash payments. Zusammenfassung: Im Zuge der Corona-Pandemie hat der Einzelhandel den Einsatz von non-cash Einzelhandel vorangetrieben. Um eine Covid-Ansteckung zu verhindern, werden Kund*innen gebeten bargeldlos zu zahlen. Tatsächlich es gibt zwischen einzelnen Volkswirtschaften große Unterschiede in der Verwendung von Bargeld und bargeldlosen Zahlungen. Im Beitrag wird empirisch der Frage nachgegangen, welche Faktoren hinter diesen Unterschieden stehen. Die zentrale Hypothese ist, dass Kultur eine große Rolle spielt. Dieses Paper analysiert auf der Grundlage der vorhandenen empirischen Literatur den Einfluss kultureller Faktoren auf den Einsatz von bargeldlosen Zahlungen. Dazu werden nicht nur makroökonomische Daten von der Europäischen Zentralbank und Eurostat, sondern auch die Hofstede Indikatoren herangezogen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass insbesondere die kulturelle Dimension „Uncertainty Avoidance“ die nationalen Differenzen der gesellschaftlichen Akzeptanz erklären kann. Volkswirtschaften mit einer höheren „Uncertainty Avoidance“ setzen stärker auf non-cash.