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ABSTRACT Agricultural entrepreneurship is the driving force of endogenous rural economic development, which is conducive to rural revitalization and sustainable development in developing countries. Based on a quasi‐experiment in policy intervention and China's county‐level panel data from 2010 to 2022, this study empirically investigates the impact of digital village construction on agricultural entrepreneurship using the difference‐in‐differences model. The empirical results indicate that policy interventions in digital village construction have a significant impact on increasing agricultural entrepreneurship, and this conclusion remains valid after a series of robustness tests. Specifically, digital village construction affects agricultural entrepreneurship through the direct path of developing characteristic agriculture—referring to agricultural activities that leverage local distinctive resources, cultural heritage, or ecological conditions to produce unique and often branded products (commonly termed ‘specialty agriculture’ or ‘specialized agriculture’ in the international literature)—and modestly improving agricultural diversification as well as through the indirect path of improving regional innovation capacity, enhancing fiscal expenditure, and accelerating marketization. In addition, the heterogeneity analysis shows that the digital village construction effect on agricultural entrepreneurship is more pronounced in the major food‐producing areas and in regions with well‐established digital infrastructure. These findings provide implications for the policy optimization of the construction of digital villages and the development of county‐specific agriculture. The endowment advantages of different types of regions should be combined, and the application of digital facilities should be strengthened to stimulate the vitality of agricultural entrepreneurship.
Wang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.