Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. iii Terms of use: Documents in AbstractWe measure consumers' use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries. The seven diary surveys were conducted in 2009 (Canada), 2010 (Australia), 2011 (Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands), and 2012 (the United States). Our paper finds cross-country differences -for example, the level of cash usage differs across countries. Cash has not disappeared as a payment instrument, especially for low-value transactions. We also find that the use of cash is strongly correlated with transaction size, demographics, and point-of-sale characteristics such as merchant card acceptance and venue.

In this Working Paper, John Freeman, Jude Hays-both from the University of Minnesota-and Helmut Stix, an economist in the Economic Studies Division of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank study the impact of political information on exchange rates. In this interdisciplinary approach the authors combine theoretical results from the field of political science with those of economics to develop stylized facts about the impact of democratic institutions on economic equilibration. The authors develop several competing propositions about how political equilibration affects currency markets. Then these propositions are tested by means of a Markov switching model with time-varying transition probabilities which are governed by political information. The political variables used are government approval, the probability of government dissolution, the probability of government reelection and a measure of electoral uncertainty based on the concept of entropy. In general, the results show that information about electoral outcomes and opinion polls about chief executive performance do affect exchange rates. Also, there is some evidence that political effects are weaker in countries with proportional representation electoral systems than in countries with majority-plurality systems.

The Working Paper series of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank is designed to disseminate and to provide a platform for discussion of either work of the staff of the OeNB economists or outside contributors on topics which are of special interest to the OeNB. To ensure the high quality of their content, the contributions are subjected to an international refereeing process. The opinions are strictly those of the authors and do in no way commit the OeNB.

We study the evolution of people's trust in banks during the global financial crisis, and the factors that determine its level. Austrian survey data show that trust in banks declined sizeably during the financial crisis, but the lowest observed trust level (60%) is still higher than that of many other institutions. We establish that a trust decline is related to agents' subjective view of the economic situation and the direct experience of bank failures. Deposit insurance stabilizes banking trust. Both the lack of bank collapses and the extension of deposit insurance coverage had a cushioning effect on trust in banks.

Cash demand, payment cards, cash substitution,