Can Farmers’ Participation in E-Commerce Promote Common Prosperity? An Empirical Analysis Based on Survey Data of Farmers in 10 Chinese Provinces

Based on data from the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Comprehensive Survey, this study uses a sample of 2508 farm households from 10 provinces to empirically examine the effect of farmers’ e-commerce participation on common prosperity and its underlying mechanisms. The benchmark regression results indicate that farmers’ e-commerce participation significantly promotes common prosperity. The findings remain robust after a series of robustness checks, including propensity score matching (PSM), Tobit estimation, instrumental variable approaches, and alternative measures of the core explanatory variable. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that farmers’ engagement in e-commerce business has a significantly positive effect on common prosperity in the eastern, central, and western regions, with the largest estimated effect observed in the central region. Moreover, farmers’ engagement in e-commerce business significantly enhances common prosperity across groups with different income levels and average household educational attainment, with larger estimated effects among low-income households and those with lower average education levels, indicating greater benefits for relatively disadvantaged groups. Mechanism analysis results indicate that farmers’ participation in e-commerce operations mainly promotes common prosperity through two pathways: improving rural credit accessibility and enhancing information acquisition capabilities.