Description
How can governments in lower-income countries capture a share of the rents from platform businesses? Drawing on fieldwork and value chain analysis of Ghana, Uganda and Kenya’s mobile money sectors, we find that internationally active telecommunications and finance companies shape the ways in which these locally-specific industries become integrated into the global digital economy, using their power in the value chain to hold on to rents, monetise data and invest it offshore. These countries all implemented taxes on mobile money users - the burden of which falls heavily on those with lower incomes - but each was designed differently, reflecting different fiscal pressures and the political power of finance, fintech and telecoms sectors. The paper contributes to broader debates about how lower-income countries may benefit from digital transformation as a source of revenue and economic power.
