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| Poverty alleviation through e-commerce: Village involvement and demonstration policies in rural China |
| PENG Chao1*, MA Biao2*, ZHANG Chen3 |
1 Administration and Management Institute, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Beijing 102208, P.R.China
2 School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, P.R.China
3 Institute of Population and Labor Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100006, P.R.China |
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摘要
电子商务作为数字经济直接催生的新业态，为农产品产销衔接提供了新渠道、为农民持续稳定增收提供了新途径。本文以农业农村部全国农村固定观察点村级数据为基础，基于“电子商务进农村综合示范项目”这一准自然实验，实证分析了电商对村庄人均收入的影响，以验证电商在扶贫中起到的作用。Heckman两阶段模型的实证研究结果表明，“电子商务进农村综合示范项目”显著促进了村庄人均收入的增长，对相对贫困村而言，电商对人均收入的影响还呈现出了较为明显的倒“U”型特征。未来，对农村电子商务的政策支持可优先考虑相对贫困村庄，通过投资互联网基础设施建设和电商人力资源培育的方式，进一步释放电商的“数字红利”，增加农户尤其是贫困群体的收入。
Abstract The diffusion of e-commerce has played a significant role in recent rural economic development in China. E-commerce is also considered as an efficient channel to alleviate poverty in rural China. Voluminous studies have investigated the contribution of e-commerce to agricultural development, yet it is lacking empirical evidence as to the effects of e-commerce on rural poverty alleviation. Since the year of 2014, in order to develop rural e-commerce, Chinese government launched the National Rural E-commerce Comprehensive Demonstration Project. This gradual involvement policy offered a natural experiment for evaluation of e-commerce. Based on village-level survey data from rural China and Heckit method, our study finds that rural e-commerce has a signi?cantly positive effect on rural income. Moreover, the effect is inverted U-shaped for the relative-poverty villages. The estimation of the propensity scores matching model confirms that the results are robust. The following policy recommendations are proposed: (1) policy support to rural e-commerce should prioritize the poverty-stricken villages. By doing so, the marginal income effects of e-commerce will be maximized. (2) Investment in internet infrastructure and establishment of human resources for e-commerce in rural areas will have spillover effects, increasing rural income through the “digital dividend”.
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Received: 02 June 2020
Accepted:
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| Fund: The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71673274); the Outstanding Innovative Talents Cultivation Funded Programs 2019 of Renmin University of China. |
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Corresponding Authors:
Correspondence PENG Chao, E-mail: 15801698196@126.com; MA Biao, E-mail: mabiao1992@ruc.edu.cn
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| About author: * These authors contributed equally to this study. |
Cite this article:
PENG Chao, MA Biao, ZHANG Chen.
2021.
Poverty alleviation through e-commerce: Village involvement and demonstration policies in rural China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 20(4): 998-1011.
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