For example, new and young firms are often the ones that can do the most to improve an economy’s productivity, create new jobs and raise potential output.
Second, we have been seeing a growing trend towards cashless payments in Europe for many years now. The trend accelerated most recently in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Germany, for instance, the share of cash transactions in consumers’ daily payments has fallen to 58 percent,[5] compared with 74 percent in 2017. At the same time, e-commerce is booming.