Measuring Economic Growth in Taobao Villages: Evidence from Outer Space
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Wang, Yi-Ping
Abstract
E-commerce has brought tremendous changes, including consumption patterns and transaction tools all over the world. These changes have especially impacted the rural villages, where were thought to lack of real time information and contacts of outer markets in the past. When these villages encounter the most successful E-commerce platform: Taobao, the market they can get in touch with is no longer limited, meaning these villages are able to contend with cities in the same platform. By this way, a grassroot entrepreneurial model has developed within those villages, which are composed industry cluster and high intensive of businessman who runs business on the Internet. This kind of entrepreneurship is called “Taobao Village.” In 2009, three Taobao Villages first appeared (Jiangsu Province Dong Feng village, Henan Province Dong Gao villages and Zhejiang Province Qing Yan Liu villages). Within merely six years, in 2015 there was an enormous growth in the number of Taobao Villages, from 3 to 780, distributing over 17 province. Although the quantities of Taobao Villages continue to increase, the spatial distribution is not uniform. Most Taobao Villages are grouped in the coastal areas. Based on this existing fact, we will investigate the formation causes of Taobao Villages by discussing from three sections: First section is about geographic location. Second section is about infrastructure, including the penetratiAn of a network and the density of road network. Third section is about the selection of target market. Besides, we also interest in confirming that the formation of the Taobao Village can really promote the local economic development. However, there are no accurate, direct, and transparent economic indicators, such as GDP, in those rural areas for the study. Therefore, instead of using direct economical statistical data, we use light night as the economic indicator, which was proposed by David N. Weil, et al. in “Measuring Economic Growth From Outer Space.” By using light at night intensity data, we can compare the economic development in Taobao Villages and other villages.
Subjects
E-commerce
Taobao Villages
Rural economy
Nightsat
SDGs
Type
thesis
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