移动货币税对家庭福利的影响：来自坦桑尼亚的证据

11228 The Impact of a Mobile Money Levyon Household Welfare Evidence from Tanzania Revocatus PaulDhiraj Sharma Poverty and Equity Global DepartmentOctober 2025 A verified reproducibility package for this paper isavailable athttp://reproducibility.worldbank.org,clickherefor direct access. Policy Research Working Paper11228 Abstract This paper examines the welfare effects of Tanzania’s 2021levy on mobile money transfers, a policy that sharplyincreased transaction costs in a country where mobile moneyis the primary channel for financial access and remittances.Using two waves of the Tanzania National Panel Survey(2014/15 and 2020/22) combined with high-frequencyphone survey data, a triple-difference identification strategywas implemented to isolate the impact of the levy on rural and urban households before and after its introduction.The findings show that rural households—who rely moreheavily on mobile money and have fewer financial alterna-tives—experienced a 10–18 percent decline in per capitafood consumption and a significant rise in food insecurityfollowing the levy. Robustness checks using variation inbank penetration, shock incidence, and remittance depen-dence support these results. The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about developmentissues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry thenames of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely thoseof the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank andits affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent. TheImpactofaMobileMoneyLevyonHouseholdWelfare:EvidencefromTanzania∗ RevocatusPaul(WorldBank),DhirajSharma(WorldBank) JELClassification:F24,I32,O16 Keywords:Mobilemoneylevy,HouseholdWelfare,TripleDifference,Foodconsumption,Foodsecurity 1Introduction With the rapid expansion of mobile phones in low-income countries, there has been a parallelrise in the use of mobile money.Mobile money accounts are especially prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2021, for example, about 33 percent of adults in the region had a mobilemoney account, compared to 10 percent globally (Demirgüç-Kunt et al., 2022).Mobilemoney transfers may help households pool risk and smooth consumption. So, increasing theprice of the transactions may worsen household welfare by limiting their ability to cope withshocks. In this paper, we study the welfare effects of a levy on mobile money transactions. In June2021, the average mobile money transaction fee for a transfer value of USD 18 in Tanzaniawas approximately USD 0.50.This was slightly higher than the East Africa average ofabout USD 0.40. Tanzania introduced a mobile money transfer and withdrawal tax effectiveJuly 1, 2021.The levy was added on top of the VAT (18 percent) and fees (10 percent)(GMSA, 2021).Following the introduction of the levy, the average transaction fee for atransfer value of USD 18 increased to almost USD 1.20, a 140 percent increase. Respondingto public concerns, the levy was reduced by about 30 percent, effective September 1, 2021.The average transaction fee for a transfer of USD 18 fell to about USD 1.We study theeffect of this levy on household welfare. The use of mobile money can improve household welfare through several channels.Itcan improve the ability of individuals to share risk by facilitating the creation of informalinsurance networks. Mobile money can also facilitate trade, making it easier for people topay for, and receive payment for, goods and services.It can similarly increase savings byproviding a safe, convenient, and readily accessible means to store money. Mobile money reduces the transaction costs associated with sending and receiving money,which is particularly beneficial in areas where access to banks is limited, transportation isexpensive, and migration patterns have dispersed families and social networks. Governments,too, can use mobile money to deliver social welfare payments, subsidies, or emergency relief funds directly to beneficiaries.In sum, mobile money can improve household welfare byhelping households smooth consumption and manage risk through a safe, convenient, andaffordable way to store, transfer, and access money. There is a small but growing body of literature on the impact of mobile money. The sem-inal study by Jack and Suri (2014) underscored the transformative impact of mobile money(MM) usage on welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). By analyzing the effects of reducedtransaction costs on households’ ability to cope with shocks, the authors demonstrated thatmobile money users could maintain stable consumption levels despite economic shocks, un-like non-users whos