What drives farmers’ willingness to adopt e-commerce in rural China? The role of internet use

Abstract

This letter investigates the factors that drive farmers’ willingness to adopt (WTA) e-commerce, with a focus on the role of Internet use. The recursive bivariate probit model is applied to analyze data collected from rural China. The empirical results reveal that Internet use increases the likelihood of farmers’ WTA e-commerce by 20%. Further, we show that the WTA effects of Internet use are heterogeneous between male and female household heads and among different regions.