IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/chinae/v30y2022i3p161-186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effects of E‐Commerce on Regional Poverty Reduction: Evidence from China's Rural E‐Commerce Demonstration County Program

Author

Listed:
  • Yong Qin
  • Yingfeng Fang

Abstract

This paper uses the Rural E‐Commerce Demonstration County (REDC) policy to estimate the effect of e‐commerce on poverty reduction. We discover that the REDC policy enhanced the gross regional product per capita by 8.4 percent for the total sample of counties and 10.5 percent for a subsample of poor counties. Specifically, the REDC policy increased the aggregate final product in primary industry by 10.6 percent. The final product per capita in the secondary and service sectors was 13.1 percent and 3.3 percent higher in the REDCs than in other counties, respectively. The effects were even greater for the subsample of poor counties. The estimates demonstrate that e‐commerce developed quickly in the REDCs since the implementation of the REDC policy. The income of those involved in e‐commerce increased, yielding more aggregate savings deposits. The expansion of e‐commerce induced more investment, suggesting that more aggregate loans are being made in REDCs. This evidence suggests new opportunities for poor people in the new digital economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Yong Qin & Yingfeng Fang, 2022. "The Effects of E‐Commerce on Regional Poverty Reduction: Evidence from China's Rural E‐Commerce Demonstration County Program," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(3), pages 161-186, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:30:y:2022:i:3:p:161-186
    DOI: 10.1111/cwe.12422
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/cwe.12422
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/cwe.12422?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aparajita Goyal, 2010. "Information, Direct Access to Farmers, and Rural Market Performance in Central India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 22-45, July.
    2. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    3. Meng, Lingsheng, 2013. "Evaluating China's poverty alleviation program: A regression discontinuity approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 1-11.
    4. Xiaohong He, 2019. "Digital Entrepreneurship Solution To Rural Poverty: Theory, Practice And Policy Implications," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(01), pages 1-32, March.
    5. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Duncan Simester, 2011. "Goodbye Pareto Principle, Hello Long Tail: The Effect of Search Costs on the Concentration of Product Sales," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(8), pages 1373-1386, August.
    6. Victor Couture & Benjamin Faber & Yizhen Gu & Lizhi Liu, 2021. "Connecting the Countryside via E-Commerce: Evidence from China," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 35-50, March.
    7. Luo,Xubei & Niu,Chiyu, 2019. "E-Commerce Participation and Household Income Growth in Taobao Villages," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8811, The World Bank.
    8. Jennifer T. Lai & Isabel K. M. Yan & Xingjian Yi & Hao Zhang, 2020. "Digital Financial Inclusion and Consumption Smoothing in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 28(1), pages 64-93, January.
    9. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine & Alexey Levkov, 2010. "Big Bad Banks? The Winners and Losers from Bank Deregulation in the United States," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 65(5), pages 1637-1667, October.
    10. Robert Jensen, 2007. "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 879-924.
    11. Ward, Patrick S., 2016. "Transient Poverty, Poverty Dynamics, and Vulnerability to Poverty: An Empirical Analysis Using a Balanced Panel from Rural China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 541-553.
    12. Shi Li, 2014. "Poverty Reduction and Effects of Pro-poor Policies in Rural China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 22(2), pages 22-41, March.
    13. Chris Parker & Kamalini Ramdas & Nicos Savva, 2016. "Is IT Enough? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in India’s Agriculture Markets," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(9), pages 2481-2503, September.
    14. Park, Albert & Wang, Sangui, 2010. "Community-based development and poverty alleviation: An evaluation of China's poor village investment program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 790-799, October.
    15. Sagren Moodley & Mike Morris, 2004. "Does e-commerce fulfil its promise for developing country (South African) garment export producers?," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 155-178.
    16. Sabina Alkire & Yingfeng Fang, 2019. "Dynamics of Multidimensional Poverty and Uni-dimensional Income Poverty: An Evidence of Stability Analysis from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 25-64, February.
    17. Hernan Galperin & M. Fernanda Viecens, 2017. "Connected for Development? Theory and evidence about the impact of Internet technologies on poverty alleviation," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 35(3), pages 315-336, May.
    18. Yingfeng Fang & Fen Zhang, 2021. "The Future Path To China’s Poverty Reduction—Dynamic Decomposition Analysis With The Evolution Of China’s Poverty Reduction Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 507-538, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhou Jiang & Maoxia Zeng & Mingming Shi, 2023. "E‐commerce and Consumption Inequality in China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 31(5), pages 61-86, September.
    2. Jiexi Shen & Zhanguo Zhu & Matin Qaim & Shenggen Fan & Xu Tian, 2023. "E‐commerce improves dietary quality of rural households in China," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(S1), pages 1495-1511, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shiyi Chen & Wanlin Liu & Hong Song & Qing Zhang, 2024. "Government‐led e‐commerce expansion project and rural household income: Evidence and mechanisms," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(1), pages 150-174, January.
    2. Duan, Wenqi & Jiang, Mingming & Qi, Jianhong, 2024. "Poverty or pollution: The environmental cost of E-commerce for poverty reduction in China," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    3. Yingfeng Fang & Fen Zhang, 2021. "The Future Path To China’s Poverty Reduction—Dynamic Decomposition Analysis With The Evolution Of China’s Poverty Reduction Policies," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 158(2), pages 507-538, December.
    4. Luo, Jay, 2019. "Poverty alleviation research in rural China: Three decades and counting," SocArXiv gmuav, Center for Open Science.
    5. Guo, Junping & Qu, Song, 2021. "Multidimensional and Relative Poverty in Rural China: Evidence from Micro-Level Data of 6145 Households," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315040, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Tisorn Songsermsawas & Kathy Baylis & Ashwini Chhatre & Hope Michelson, 2014. "Can Peers Improve Agricultural Productivity?," CESifo Working Paper Series 4958, CESifo.
    7. Duan, Wenqi & Jiang, Mingming & Qi, Jianhong, 2024. "Agricultural certification, market access and rural economic growth: Evidence from poverty-stricken counties in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 99-114.
    8. Guo, Junping & Qu, Song & Zhu, Tiehui, 2022. "Estimating China’s relative and multidimensional Poverty: Evidence from micro-level data of 6145 rural households," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    9. Pierre Courtois & Julie Subervie, 2015. "Farmer Bargaining Power and Market Information Services," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 97(3), pages 953-977.
    10. Genqiang Lei & Xiaohong Huang & Penghui Xi, 2016. "The impact of transfer payments on urban-rural income gap: based on fuzzy RD analysis of China’s midwestern county data," China Finance and Economic Review, Springer, vol. 4(1), pages 1-17, December.
    11. Thanh‐Tung Nguyen & Trung Thanh Nguyen & Ulrike Grote, 2023. "Internet use and agricultural productivity in rural Vietnam," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1309-1326, August.
    12. Mora-Rivera, Jorge & García-Mora, Fernando, 2021. "Internet access and poverty reduction: Evidence from rural and urban Mexico," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2).
    13. Eswaran, Mukesh, 2018. "Can For-Profit Business Alleviate Extreme Poverty in Developing Countries?," Microeconomics.ca working papers tina_marandola-2018-6, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 06 Jun 2018.
    14. repec:ags:mididp:152396 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Trevon D. Logan & Manisha Shah, 2013. "Face Value: Information and Signaling in an Illegal Market," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 79(3), pages 529-564, January.
    16. Nguyen, Trung Thanh & Nguyen, Thanh-Tung & Grote, Ulrike, 2022. "Internet use, natural resource extraction and poverty reduction in rural Thailand," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    17. Dammert, Ana C. & Galdo, Jose & Galdo, Virgilio, 2013. "Digital labor-market intermediation and job expectations: Evidence from a field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 112-116.
    18. Hong, Junjie & Shi, Fangyuan & Zheng, Yuhan, 2023. "Does network infrastructure construction reduce energy intensity? Based on the “Broadband China” strategy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    19. Ardelean, Adina & Lugovskyy, Volodymyr, 2023. "It Pays to be big: Price discrimination in maritime shipping," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    20. Robert T. Jensen, 2010. "Information, efficiency, and welfare in agricultural markets," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(s1), pages 203-216, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:chinae:v:30:y:2022:i:3:p:161-186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iwepacn.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.