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View all- Gong JPng I(2024)Automation Enables SpecializationManagement Science10.1287/mnsc.2023.476070:3(1580-1595)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024
Cost of Cash: : Evidence from Cashiers
Abstract
An important but overlooked cost of payments in retailing is the cost on checkout cashiers. This paper examines the compensating wage differential that cashiers require to handle payments in cash. First, a multicountry panel data study shows that cashier wages increase with retail cash usage, which is consistent with cashiers requiring compensation to handle cash. Second, in a discrete choice experiment where supermarket cashiers chose between collecting card and cash payments, eight of 10 cashiers preferred card to cash. Among those who preferred card, the median cashier required a wage premium of S$37.50 (US$27) a month to handle cash. The premium was lower among cashiers who are local, less risk averse, and younger. Third, in a laboratory study, subjects traded off earnings against stress. With higher frequency of cash payments, high earners experienced greater physiological stress than low earners. Earnings also increased with abilities in arithmetic and coping with stress. Collectively, these studies show that cashiers require higher wages to handle cash payments, in part due to higher stress. We offer policy, managerial, and research implications for job design, payment systems, and workplace stress.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt this work, but you must attribute this work as “Service Science. Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). https://doi10.1287/serv.2021.0272, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.”
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Published: 01 June 2021
Accepted: 18 March 2021
Received: 13 September 2020
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View all- Gong JPng I(2024)Automation Enables SpecializationManagement Science10.1287/mnsc.2023.476070:3(1580-1595)Online publication date: 1-Mar-2024