IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v87y2025icp221-234.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of rural e-commerce on income inequality: evidence from the National Rural E-Commerce Comprehensive Demonstration policy in China

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Yanyuan
  • Wu, Xintong
  • Cai, Rong

Abstract

Mitigating income inequality is essential for promoting rural revitalization and achieving common prosperity. Rural e-commerce has gradually become a significant tool for poverty alleviation and economic inclusion by transforming the traditional agricultural economy through digital technology. Using the National Rural E-Commerce Comprehensive Demonstration (NREC) Policy as a quasi-natural experiment, this study examines the effect of rural e-commerce on income inequality among rural households based on the recentering influence function (RIF) and inverse-probability-weighting (IPW) methods. Findings drawn from the 2010–2020 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) dataset indicate that the NREC policy significantly reduces total income inequality among rural households. Further analysis reveals that this policy exacerbates operating income inequality by enhancing household entrepreneurship while mitigating wage income inequality by promoting non-agricultural employment. Importantly, the latter effect exerts a more substantial influence on overall income distribution. These findings emphasize the importance of advancing the NREC policy to construct digital villages and achieve common prosperity.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Yanyuan & Wu, Xintong & Cai, Rong, 2025. "The effects of rural e-commerce on income inequality: evidence from the National Rural E-Commerce Comprehensive Demonstration policy in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 221-234.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:221-234
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2025.05.052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S031359262500219X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2025.05.052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:87:y:2025:i:c:p:221-234. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.