Cash as Social Infrastructure

The third in Bill Maurer and Stephen Rea's series of guest posts is up on the Credit Slips blog:

As Janet Arnado, one IMTFI researcher, notes: "Informal wealth storing strategies exclusive of formal or informal financial institutions may always be practiced by the rural poor in the developing world, side by side with people’s utilization of financial institutions, because these practices have social dimensions as much as it has economic significance." At a Buddhist temple in Seattle, devotees build money trees to raise funds; in Ghana, brides are showered with money on their wedding day (they used to use Ghanaian currency but when it was redenominated, they could no longer afford bills. Rather than pelt the bride with coins, they switched to Nigerian naira).

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