  A tool to improve the effectiveness and the efficiency of public spending is
proposed here. In the 19th century banknotes had a serial number. However, in
modern days the use of digital transactions that do not use physical currency
has opened the possibility to digitally track almost each cent of the economy.
In this article a serial number or tracking number for each cent, pence or any
other monetary unit of the economy is proposed. Then, almost all cents can be
tracked by recording the transactions in a public distributed ledger, rather
than recording the amount of the transaction, the information recorded in the
block of the transaction is the actual serial number or tracking number for
each cent that changes ownership. In order to keep the privacy of the
transaction, only generic identification of private companies and individuals
are recorded along with generic information about the concept of transaction,
the region and the date/time. A secondary public distributed ledger whose
blocks are identified by a hash reference that is recorded in the bank
statement available to the payer and the payee allows for checking the accuracy
of the first public distributed ledger by comparing the transactions made in
one day, one region and one type of concept. However, the transactions made or
received by the government are recorded with a much higher level of detail in
the first ledger and a higher level of disclosure in the second ledger. The
result is a tool that is able to accurately track public spending, to keep
privacy of individuals and companies and to make statistical analysis and
experiments or real tests in the economy of a country. This tool has the
potential to assist public policymakers in demonstrating the societal benefits
resulting from their policies, thereby enabling more informed decision-making
for future policy endeavours.
