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Impact of e-commerce development on rural income: Evidence from counties in revolutionary old areas of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2024

Huwei Wen Open the ORCID record for Huwei Wen [Opens in a new window] ,
Anqi Qiu  and
Yulin Huang
Huwei Wen*
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Management, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China
Anqi Qiu
Affiliation:
School of Economics and Management, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China
Yulin Huang
Affiliation:
Ji Luan Academy, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China
*
Corresponding author: Huwei Wen; Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Digital technology has enormous potential in rural revitalisation, thus providing impetus for improving the well-being of rural residents in underdeveloped areas. This study takes the policies of e-commerce in rural areas as an intervention in the development of e-commerce. It uses the panel data from 321 counties in the old revolutionary areas of China from 2003 to 2020 to empirically explore the impact of e-commerce development on the income of rural residents. Results show that e-commerce significantly improves the income and well-being of rural residents in old revolutionary areas. Propensity score matching and entropy balance matching are used to overcome group differences in covariate features, and the estimation results are consistently robust. In terms of mechanisms, e-commerce development increases per capita income in old revolutionary areas by promoting three aspects significantly: agricultural revitalisation, non-agricultural employment, and government support efforts. On the other hand, the heterogeneity analysis shows that e-commerce plays a diminishing role in increasing income in the eastern, central, and western regions.

Keywords

agricultural revitalisatione-commercefinancial capacitynon-agricultural employmentold revolutionary base arearural resident income
Type
Original Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , First View , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The University of New South Wales

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