If Peter Sands, a Harvard University fellow and former bank executive, gets his way, the answer may be no. Mr. Sands wants to get rid of the $100 bill, the 1,000 Swiss franc note, the €500 note and the £50 British note because those high denominations make it easier for criminals to conceal large sums of cash and eliminating them would make it tougher for the bad guys to do business.

“My argument is if you have something that society doesn’t really need but illegal activity really likes, why are you producing it?” asked Mr. Sands, a former chief executive of Standard Chartered PLC and a senior fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government…

Replacing the bill would be expensive. It costs 14.3 cents to produce a $100 bill. The next largest denomination, the $50 bill, costs 10.6 cents, but twice as many would have to be printed, at a higher cost overall. (The $100 bill is more expensive to make because of its security features.) Transporting a greater number of smaller bills would also cost more. And some seigniorage—the profit made by the government by issuing currency—would be forfeited…

Even if the U.S. did drop the $100 bill, several government agencies predicted criminals would simply gravitate to whatever denominations were available.