{"title":"Rural E-Commerce and Agricultural Mechanization","authors":"Fei Lu, Lu Yan","doi":"10.1007/s12061-025-09661-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Existing studies emphasize rural e-commerce’s impact on agricultural consumption but neglect its direct production effects. This paper first outlines the historical development of agricultural mechanization and e-commerce in China.Using a county-level panel dataset covering 1321 counties from 2011 to 2020 and leveraging the E-Commerce Demonstration Counties policy as a quasi-natural experiment, our difference-in-differences estimates show that rural e-commerce adoption significantly boosts agricultural mechanization. These findings withstand rigorous robustness checks, including IV estimation using historical newspaper office locations during the Late Qing Dynasty and Republican era as an instrument. Mechanism analysis identifies three key channels: (1) increasing farmers’ income, (2) growing new agricultural entities (e.g., agribusiness firms and cooperatives), and (3) expanding operational scale. Most notably, we find that e-commerce fundamentally reshapes agricultural production by accelerating the transition from family farms to cooperative-based and large-scale farming operations. The study further reveals that e-commerce exerts a particularly strong positive effect on agricultural development in underdeveloped counties. These findings provide empirical support for promoting agricultural mechanization in the context of e-commerce development.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":46392,"journal":{"name":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","volume":"18 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12061-025-09661-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Existing studies emphasize rural e-commerce’s impact on agricultural consumption but neglect its direct production effects. This paper first outlines the historical development of agricultural mechanization and e-commerce in China.Using a county-level panel dataset covering 1321 counties from 2011 to 2020 and leveraging the E-Commerce Demonstration Counties policy as a quasi-natural experiment, our difference-in-differences estimates show that rural e-commerce adoption significantly boosts agricultural mechanization. These findings withstand rigorous robustness checks, including IV estimation using historical newspaper office locations during the Late Qing Dynasty and Republican era as an instrument. Mechanism analysis identifies three key channels: (1) increasing farmers’ income, (2) growing new agricultural entities (e.g., agribusiness firms and cooperatives), and (3) expanding operational scale. Most notably, we find that e-commerce fundamentally reshapes agricultural production by accelerating the transition from family farms to cooperative-based and large-scale farming operations. The study further reveals that e-commerce exerts a particularly strong positive effect on agricultural development in underdeveloped counties. These findings provide empirical support for promoting agricultural mechanization in the context of e-commerce development.
期刊介绍:
Description
The journal has an applied focus: it actively promotes the importance of geographical research in real world settings
It is policy-relevant: it seeks both a readership and contributions from practitioners as well as academics
The substantive foundation is spatial analysis: the use of quantitative techniques to identify patterns and processes within geographic environments
The combination of these points, which are fully reflected in the naming of the journal, establishes a unique position in the marketplace.
RationaleA geographical perspective has always been crucial to the understanding of the social and physical organisation of the world around us. The techniques of spatial analysis provide a powerful means for the assembly and interpretation of evidence, and thus to address critical questions about issues such as crime and deprivation, immigration and demographic restructuring, retailing activity and employment change, resource management and environmental improvement. Many of these issues are equally important to academic research as they are to policy makers and Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy aims to close the gap between these two perspectives by providing a forum for discussion of applied research in a range of different contexts
Topical and interdisciplinaryIncreasingly government organisations, administrative agencies and private businesses are requiring research to support their ‘evidence-based’ strategies or policies. Geographical location is critical in much of this work which extends across a wide range of disciplines including demography, actuarial sciences, statistics, public sector planning, business planning, economics, epidemiology, sociology, social policy, health research, environmental management.
FocusApplied Spatial Analysis and Policy will draw on applied research from diverse problem domains, such as transport, policing, education, health, environment and leisure, in different international contexts. The journal will therefore provide insights into the variations in phenomena that exist across space, it will provide evidence for comparative policy analysis between domains and between locations, and stimulate ideas about the translation of spatial analysis methods and techniques across varied policy contexts. It is essential to know how to measure, monitor and understand spatial distributions, many of which have implications for those with responsibility to plan and enhance the society and the environment in which we all exist.
Readership and Editorial BoardAs a journal focused on applications of methods of spatial analysis, Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy will be of interest to scholars and students in a wide range of academic fields, to practitioners in government and administrative agencies and to consultants in private sector organisations. The Editorial Board reflects the international and multidisciplinary nature of the journal.