Impact of international trade on cross-border e-commerce development: an empirical study based on the evidence from Ningbo city in China

This study analyses the interactive development mechanism between cross-border e-commerce and international trade and proposes a model to capture the effect of international trade on cross-border e-commerce development. The model reveals that international trade provides an institutional guarantee, industrial base, and information support for the development of cross-border e-commerce. Then, we collect the cross-border e-commerce and international trade data from Ningbo city in China between January 2016 and December 2018 to quantitatively investigate the interaction between them by using the vector auto regression (VAR) model. Based on the results of time series stability check, VAR check, impulse response analysis, Granger causality test and ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis, we find that the established VAR model can explain the positive effect of international trade on cross-border e-commerce development. Finally, we make recommendations for both government and enterprises to promote high-quality development of cross-border e-commerce based on the research findings.