Mobile money and the social contract: Experimental evidence from Ghana

Mobile money platforms are ubiquitous in many emerging economies. Hailed for raising financial inclusion and economic wellbeing, governments have now turned to mobile payments as a source of tax revenue. Transaction levies are often regressive, unpopular, and can encourage a return to cash. We present experimental evidence that they may also harm tax morale, a core component of the social contract between citizen and state. We present results from a survey experiment in Ghana, in which priming a controversial mobile transaction levy significantly lowers support for the state’s right to collect taxes and willingness to comply with tax laws. We combine this with focus group discussions and analyse effect heterogeneity to examine two pre-registered explanations: transaction taxes cost citizens more than they expect to gain (reciprocity) and provoke particular backlash from non-government voters (partisanship). Our findings suggest that taxing mobile money can undermine efforts to expand fiscal capacity, while raising important mechanistic and policy questions for future research.