电子商务、搜寻成本与消费价格变化  

E-Commerce,Searching Cost and Consumer Price Change:Evidence from the Micro Retailing Market

作　　者：孙浦阳[1] 张靖佳[2] 姜小雨[3] SUN Puyang ZHANG Jingjia JIANG Xiaoyu(School of Economics, Nankai University APEC Research Center, Nankai University Renmin University of China)

机构地区：[1]南开大学经济学院,中国特色社会主义经济建设协同创新中心,南开大学跨国公司研究中心,300110 [2]南开大学APEC研究中心,300110 [3]中国人民大学

出　　处：《经济研究》2017年第7期139-154,共16页Economic Research Journal

基　　金：教育部人文社会科学重点基地重大项目(项目编号:16JJD790026)的阶段性成果;教育部重点基地重大研究项目(项目编号:15JJD810013)的支持

摘　　要：电子商务交易平台通过有效提高消费者搜寻次数、降低市场搜寻成本,对零售市场的价格产生了显著影响。基于搜寻理论框架,本文首先构建了一个包含消费者差异性的搜寻与匹配效率理论框架,并且基于1999—2012年的月度微观价格监控数据,以淘宝网的B2C交易平台作为典型案例研究,通过多重差分的方法检验了理论假说。我们发现:首先,消费者通过电子商务交易平台搜寻商品效率对商品市场均衡价格的影响具有产品差异性,对价格低于一定水平的商品,消费者的搜寻效率提高会使商品均衡价格上升;而对价格高于一定水平的商品,消费者的搜寻效率提高会使商品均衡价格下降。其次,消费者运用电子商务平台的边际搜寻成本对商品均衡价格的影响具有消费市场的差异性。实证方面,本文分别运用倍差法和三重差分方法检验了上述两个理论假说中的电子商务平台对商品均衡价格影响的产品和城市差异性,并运用城市差异性指标刻画了搜寻成本。本文结果在进行若干稳健性检验后仍是稳健的。The rapid development of e-commerce has changed China＇s economy dramatically, especially the domestic consumer price of various kinds of goods. This study theoretically and empirically tests the impact of e-commerce on China＇s domestic micro retailing goods. By applying the micro retailing price of various kinds of consumer goods, the paper reveals the direct effect of e-commerce on a micro level rather than on a macroeconomic level. The literature shows that e-commerce has had a significant impact on specific industries （Lee and Clark, 1996; Lee, 1998; Brynjolfsson and Smith, 1999; Haynes and Thompson, 2008）. Moreover, consumer demand is influenced by income distribution, the household registration system, and external shock （Chen, 2012; Dai and Mao, 2015）. However, this research lacks more theoretical support and empirical evidence on the micro level. From the theoretical perspective, searching theory provides one possible explanation for the impact of e-commerce on consumer price in the micro retailing market. The theory argues that the clustering of homogeneous goods on e-commerce platforms is effective in enhancing market competition and decreasing the retailing price of goods （Heil and Prieger, 2009; Tang et al. , 2010; Waldeck, 2002）. We introduce searching time and cost into the e-commerce searching model, and use micro-level data on retailing price and the difference-in-differences method to test the aforementioned impact empirically. In terms of the representative consumer＇s searching time, this paper formulates the theoretical hypothesis that the number of searches （ or efficiency） has different effects on the retail price of different commodities. We also reveal the impact of the representative consumer＇s marginal e-commerce searching cost on the retailing price of different categories. Based on the theoretical model, we apply the micro-level retailing prices from January 1999 to December 2012 collected from the Consumer Price Institution of China to test the preceding hypoth

关 键 词：电子商务平台 搜寻效率 搜寻成本 消费价格 

分 类 号：F724.6[经济管理—产业经济] F726