电子商务发展有助于缓解县域经济不平等吗?——来自电子商务进农村综合示范县政策的准自然实验

Will E-commerce Development Help Alleviate County Economic Inequality?—Comes from a Quasi-natural Experiment of the Policy of Introducing E-commerce into Rural Comprehensive Demonstration Counties

中国式现代化是全体人民共同富裕的现代化。数字经济是经济高质量增长的重要引擎。电子商务在实现经济协调发展和推进共同富裕中的作用更加凸显。本文构建2010—2020年县级面板数据,基于电子商务进农村综合示范县政策这一准自然实验,采用渐进双重差分法检验电子商务发展对县域城乡收入差距和经济差距的影响。研究结果表明:电子商务发展能够缓解县域经济不平等,并且通过一系列的稳健性检验结果依旧成立。作用机制检验表明,电子商务发展能够通过提高乡村就业人员比例和促进社会消费缓解县域经济不平等。异质性分析结果表明,在非贫困县、数字基础设施水平较高以及市场可达性较低的地区,电子商务发展对于促进县域经济平等的作用效果更为显著。本文研究可为中国式现代化进程下缩小城乡和区域差距提供经验证据,也可为进一步推进共同富裕提供决策参考。

Chinese-style modernization is the modernization of common prosperity for all the people.As the digital economy has become an important engine for high-quality economic growth,the role of e-commerce in realizing coordinated economic development and promoting common prosperity needs to be deeply discussed.Based on the county-level panel data from 2010 to 2020,this paper uses the policy of introducing e-commerce into rural comprehensive demonstration counties,and tests the impact of e-commerce development on the county urban and rural income gap and economic gap.The results show that the development of e-commerce can significantly alleviate the county economic inequality,and pass a series of robustness tests.The mechanism of action shows that the development of e-commerce can alleviate county economic inequality by increasing the proportion of rural employment personnel and promoting social consumption.The results of heterogeneity analysis show that in non-poor counties,areas with high digital infrastructure level and low market accessibility,the development of e-commercehas a more significant effect on promoting county level economic equality.The research in this paper will not only provide scientific reference for the implementation of e-commerce policy,but also provide reasonable reference for further promoting common prosperity.