The Effect of E-Commerce on the Export Trade: Evidence from Cross-Province Panel Data

Purpose - With the rapid development of e-commerce, it has broken the traditional form of trade and opened up a new form of international trade. Therefore, this paper uses China’s 31 provinces as an example to explore the effect of e-commerce on export trade. Design/methodology/approach - Using panel data over the period 2008-2017 and employing the province, year fixed effect model, and system generalized method of moments, we fulfil empirical analyses on this proposition. Findings - The empirical findings indicate that the e-commerce has a positive and significant effect on the export trade by setting a one-lagged period foreign direct investment, labor resource endowment, and technology input as control variables in the export trade equation. Meanwhile, based on the unbalanced economic development in different areas of China, we divide China into three areas (eastern area, central area, and western area) to re-estimate the impact of e-commerce on the export trade. The empirical findings of the three areas indicate that e-commerce is still positively related with the export trade. However, there is a great difference among these three areas in terms of the effect of e-commerce on the export trade. Research implications or Originality - The empirical results of this study also enrich the current literature on this proposition with a sample on China. Moreover, this paper not only discusses the impact of e-commerce on the export trade, but also discusses the differences among the three regions on this topic.