Study On The Impact Of Taobao Village Development On Local Economy And Environment

The development of rural e-commerce is an important grip to realize the transformation of rural economy,and it is important to assess the impact of rural e-commerce development on local economy and environment.Rural e-commerce in China has developed rapidly in the past decades,among which Taobao Village is a typical representative of the development of rural e-commerce in China.Therefore,this paper takes Taobao Village as an example to empirically analyze the impact of China’s rural e-commerce development on the local economy and environment.In this paper,we firstly reviewed the current status of domestic and international research on rural e-commerce;secondly,we collected data on economic development and environmental indicators for 15526 sample villages during 2014-2020 using remote sensing technology,Python and statistical annual reports.Among them,5178 Taobao Villages in China in 2020 were used as the treatment group sample,and the Non-Taobao Villages matched by each Taobao Village（a total of 10,348）were used as the control group sample;and the average nighttime light intensity was used to represent the economic development level and PM_2.5 was used to represent the environmental level.Then,a synthetic control double difference estimation model is used for the empirical analysis,and finally,the empirical results are subjected to robustness tests and heterogeneity analysis.The main findings of this study are as follows:（1）The spatial geographic distribution of Taobao Villages shows a strong spatial agglomeration,with more than 90%of Taobao Villages nationwide distributed in the eastern region of China;（2）The results of the empirical analysis show that the development of rural e-commerce represented by Taobao Villages can significantly contribute to local economic development in general;however,it will have a significant negative impact on the local environment;（3）The results of the heterogeneity analysis show that the development of rural e-commerce represented by Taobao Villages has a statistically significant impact on both the economy and the environment in the eastern region,but the impact is statistically insignificant in both the central and western regions.Based on the empirical results of this study,the following policy recommendations are proposed:（1）Balancing the spatial distribution pattern of Taobao Villages and promoting the development of Taobao Villages in the central and western regions;（2）Strengthen policy support to promote economic development through Taobao Villages;（3）Improve laws and regulations to strengthen the environmental governance of Taobao Villages.Especially the eastern region in the Taobao Villages development process to focus on environmental governance and improvement.