作者:Binhui Wei(魏滨辉); Chunkai Zhao*(赵纯凯); Mingzhong Luo(罗明忠)
期刊:《China Economic Review》
出版时间:2024, Vol.87
校内级别:T2类
DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2024.102247
摘要:
Employing a quasi-natural experiment of the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration County (NRECDC) policy, our research aimed to explore the causal effect of e-commerce development and residents' subjective well-being (SWB) in rural China. By adopting the data of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2014 to 2020 and using a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) method, we found that rural e-commerce development resulted in an average increase of 2.40% in happiness scores. This positive effect can be explained by absolute material welfare enhancement, relative disparity reduction, and social capital accumulation. Further evidence suggests that e-commerce users are more likely to benefit from the NRECDC policy and that the synergistic effect of digital finance and e-commerce contributes to rural residents' SWB. However, we revealed that the potential digital divide effect in e-commerce development, due to technological barriers and self-digital exclusion, has not enhanced the SWB of some relatively disadvantaged groups in rural China. Our findings enrich the research field of digital well-being and shed light on the potential digital divide effects of digital tools such as e-commerce in rural China.
关键词:
Digital divide; E-commerce development; National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration County; Rural China; Subjective well-being