第三方数字平台能否帮助中小微企业提升经营收益?——来自百万商户大数据的证据

Can the Third-Party Digital Platforms Help Small,Medium,and Micro Enterprises Improve Their Sales Performance?——Evidence from Millions of Merchants'Big Data

本文基于某大型流程数字化商贸平台的百万商户大数据,利用倾向性得分匹配方法,为服务行业中小微企业通过第三方数字平台开展流程数字化的经营效益提供因果推断与异质性分析。研究发现,相比同等条件非数字化商户,数字化商户年均销量和金额均增加。三、四线城市,企业主为中老年,以及拥有一定数字经济资源禀赋的中等数字城市企业,营收提升更明显。本文为服务业中小微企业的流程数字化与缩减数字鸿沟提供政策参考。

Using the big data of one million firms on a popular business-process-digitizing commercial platform,this paper presents a causal and heterogeneity analysis of firm digitization benefits in the tertiary industry by propensity score matching.It shows the adoption of this platform has a significant positive effect on firms'average annual sales and trading volume compared with similar but non-digitized Small,Medium,and Micro Enterprises(SMMEs).Moreover,SMMEs in third-and fourth-tier cities,with middle-aged and elderly owners and less developed digital cities with the basic digital infrastructure,benefit more.It provides policy implications on firms'business process digitization and narrowing the digital divide.