Has Electronic Commerce Growth Narrowed the Urban–Rural Income Gap? The Intermediary Effect of the Technological Innovation

In the internet era, the development of e-commerce has had an important impact on all aspects of society. Many previous studies focused on the social and economic effects of the development of e-commerce. However, previous studies paid little attention to the impact of e-commerce development on the urban–rural income gap. Here, the influence of electronic commerce growth on the urban–rural income gap is investigated based on Chinese provincial panel data. The result reveals that electronic commerce growth measured by per capita express volume (pair value) can effectively explain the urban–rural income gap, i.e., the income gap between cities and the countryside is reduced with the rise of the electronic commerce growth level after a series of possible factors for the urban–rural income gap (e.g., urbanization rate, industrial proportion, dependency ratio, and human capital) are controlled. In the abovementioned conclusions, the influence of electronic commerce growth on the income gap between cities and the countryside still takes on significance even after the use of the post office number and the mileage of grade roads in 1991 as the instrumental variables of the current electronic commerce growth and the robustness test. The growth of electronic commerce is a vital new approach for adjusting the urban–rural income distribution pattern. The study further reveals that electronic commerce growth does not directly affect the urban–rural income gap by affecting technological innovation. The research results of this study provide a reference for electronic commerce growth and the income distribution of cities and the countryside.