“互联网+”的城市和城乡差异——来自工业企业和阿里巴巴的证据

The Regional Disparity of Internet Use: a Research Based on the Evidence from Manufacturing Firms and Alibaba E-commerce Platform

互联网的应用在地区间是不均衡的。一方面,互联网作为一种信息科技,在人口或经济集聚水平高的地区更有可能扩散;另一方面,网络尤其是电子商务的兴起削弱了地理距离所导致的沟通不便,有利于农村、乡镇的企业参与全国市场。本文将阿里巴巴供应商和工业企业数据相匹配,利用Relogit等实证方法发现,集聚水平低的城市以及城市内位于村、镇的企业虽然使用邮箱和网站的概率较低,但是更有动力利用互联网电子商务平台进行展示和销售,其中,城乡造成的电子商务倾向差异约4.5%,人口总量从数据的20%分位点上升到80%分位点时造成的电子商务倾向差异约2.4%。进一步地,企业的成本水平尤其是促销费用的水平能够提高企业开展电子商务的积极性,即"降成本"是开展电子商务的一个重要原因。城市层面的实证验证了以上结论的稳健性。

Internet use is not equal among the regions. On one hand, as an information technology, Internet is more likely to spread in big cities. While on the other hand, the rise of internet, especially e-commerce, weakens the geographical distance which leads to an inconvenience of communication, so that it is more appealing to the firms located in rural area and small cities. Based on the data of Alibaba and micro manufacturing firms, this paper discovers that the firms located in the cities with low aggregation or those in villages and towns are more likely to participate in e-commerce, which contradicts the fact of using e-mail and website. Specifically, we find that rural firms are 4.5% higher than urban ones to participate in E-commerce, and it will be 2.4% higher if the population changes from 20% to 80% percentile. We also find that the level of costs especially promotional costs can improve the enthusiasm of firms toward e-commerce, which means that cost saving is an important reason for e-commerce participation. The test of city-level data also shows the robustness.