From click to boom : the political economy of e-commerce in China / Lizh Liu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Liu, Lizhi.

Series:

Princeton Studies in Contemporary China Series

Princeton Studies in Contemporary China Series ; v.18

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Electronic commerce--Political aspects--China.

Electronic commerce.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (329 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2024.

Summary:

How the world’s largest e-commerce market highlights a digital path to developmentHow do states build vital institutions for market development? Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule of law, contract enforcement, and loan access. In From Click to Boom, Lizhi Liu examines a digital solution: governments strategically outsourcing tasks of institutional development and enforcement to digital platforms—a process she calls “institutional outsourcing.”China’s e-commerce boom showcases this digital path to development. In merely two decades, China built from scratch a two-trillion-dollar e-commerce market, with 800 million users, seventy million jobs, and nearly fifty percent of global online retail sales. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Liu argues, this market boom occurred because of weak government institutions, not despite them. Gaps in government institutions compelled e-commerce platforms to build powerful private institutions for contract enforcement, fraud detection, and dispute resolution. For a surprisingly long period, the authoritarian government acquiesced, endorsed, and even partnered with this private institutional building despite its disruptive nature. Drawing on a plethora of interviews, original surveys, proprietary data, and a field experiment, Liu shows that the resulting e-commerce boom had far-reaching effects on China.Institutional outsourcing nonetheless harbors its own challenges. With inadequate regulation, platforms may abuse market power, while excessive regulation stifles institutional innovation. China’s regulatory oscillations toward platforms—from laissez-faire to crackdown and back to support—underscore the struggle to strike the right balance.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Introduction

2 Institutional Outsourcing

3 Making Institutions Work

4 The Invisible State?

5 Digital Path to Prosperity or Road to Nowhere?

6 Governing the Titans

7 Bridging the Past and the Present

Appendix to Chapter 4

Appendix to Chapter 5

Notes

Bibliography

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691254111

0691254117

OCLC:

1457638950