ABSTRACT Entrepreneurial activity is a key indicator of regional economic vitality and innovation capacity. Against the backdrop of accelerating digital economic development, cross‐border e‐commerce (CBEC), as a new form of international trade, is not only reshaping the global trade landscape but also injecting new momentum into regional entrepreneurship. This study exploits the phased rollout of China's CBEC Comprehensive Pilot Zones as a quasi‐natural experiment. It constructs a multi‐period difference‐in‐differences model using panel data of 286 prefecture‐level cities from 2008 to 2021 to evaluate the policy's impact on urban entrepreneurial activity and explore potential mechanisms. The empirical results show that, first, the CBEC policy significantly promotes the growth of new firm creation and exhibits robust positive effects. Second, mechanism analysis reveals that the policy operates through four main channels: digital empowerment of traditional industries, venture capital agglomeration, high‐skilled talent attraction, and enhancement of high‐end manufacturing product exports. Third, heterogeneity analysis indicates that the policy effect is more pronounced in inland, peripheral, and resource‐based cities, and that non‐state‐owned enterprises and technology‐intensive sectors benefit more significantly. This study enriches the analytical framework of digital trade and entrepreneurship, deepens the understanding of the economic effects of CBEC policy, and provides empirical evidence to support regional entrepreneurship policymaking in the context of institutional opening‐up.
Sun et al. (2025) studied this question.