Money Isn’t Everything, but It Helps If It Doesn’t Look Used: How the Physical Appearance of Money Influences Spending

Abstract

Despite evidence that currency denomination can influence spending, researchers have yet to examine whether the physical appearance of money can do the same. This is important because smaller denomination bills tend to suffer greater wear than larger denomination bills. Using real money in the context of real purchases, this article demonstrates that the physical appearance of money can override the influence of denomination. The reason being, people want to rid themselves of worn bills because they are disgusted by the contamination from others, whereas people put a premium on crisp currency because they take pride in owning bills that can be spent around others. This suggests that the physical appearance of money matters more than traditionally thought, and like most things in life, it too is inextricably linked to the social context. The results suggest that money may be less fungible than people think.

The Role of Arousal in Congruity-Based Product Evaluation

“…Finally, this work is in line with recent efforts to highlight the role that discrete emotions play in consumption (Di Muro and Murray 2012;Di Muro and Noseworthy 2013;Pham 2001). New products indeed encourage state-driven curiosity, but they do so only up to a certain point.…”

Other People’s Money: Money’s Perceived Purchasing Power Is Smaller for Others Than for the Self

“…For example, people are more likely to cheat with used, dirty bills than with clean, crisp bills (Yang et al 2013). Likewise, because people value dirty bills less than clean bills, they are quicker to spend dirty bills but place greater value on products purchased with clean ones (Di Muro and Noseworthy 2013;Galoni and Noseworthy 2015).…”

An Analysis of Bookkeeping Practises of Micro-Entrepreneurs in the Retail Clothing Industry in Cape Town, South Africa

“…Petty cash is used to purchase small items which cost small amounts of money for day-to-day operation of micro-enterprises [35,49,50]. Petty cash purchases may account for a huge amount of money by the end of a year.…”

“…Petty cash purchases may account for a huge amount of money by the end of a year. Therefore it is essential to keep proper records, such as receipts, of all petty expenditures which will enable the micro-entrepreneur to categorise those expenses at the end of the period [13,50]. If the micro-entrepreneur has employees, he/she is obligated to remunerate the employees.…”