Great and Small Walls of China: Distance & Chinese E-Commerce

Liang Chen (), Garrett Johnson () and Yao Luo
Additional contact information
Liang Chen: Economics and Management School, Wuhan University, Luojia Hill, Wuhan, China, 430072
Garrett Johnson: Simon Business School, University of Rochester, 3-206 Carol Simon Hall, Box 270100, Rochester, NY 14627

No 15-14, Working Papers from NET Institute

Abstract: Alibaba’s Taobao is China’s dominant C2C e-commerce platform. Relying on novel transaction level data from its electronics category, this paper examines the roles of distance as well as seller and buyer experience in Chinese e-commerce. Our estimate of a gravity model shows that the distance elasticity in our data is greater than US C2C e-commerce but smaller than that of South America. In addition, we document greater home bias in China than either of the US or South American Settings. Moreover, by estimating a “new-new” trade model using seller-level transaction data, this paper studies the link between seller experience and distance. Our results show that more experienced sellers tend to sell more and export their goods farther into the marketplace.

Keywords: e-commmerce; China; gravity; distance; domestic trade; Internet marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F10 F14 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-ict and nep-tra
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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