Research on the Impact and Mechanism of Rural E-Commerce on Market-Oriented Allocation of County-Level Urban–Rural Factors from the Perspective of Digital Empowerment

To examine how digitally empowered rural e-commerce affects the market-oriented allocation of urban–rural factors at the county level and the underlying mechanism, this study treats the National E-commerce into Rural Counties Demonstration Program as a quasi-natural experiment. Using a panel of 1898 Chinese counties from 2000 to 2022, we conduct multi-period DID with staggered adoption and mediation analyses. The results show that rural e-commerce significantly raises the marketization level of factor allocation; the effect grows stronger over time and is most pronounced during the rapid-expansion phase, in agriculture-oriented e-commerce counties, in poverty-stricken counties, and in the Central and Western regions. The impact operates mainly through three channels: enlarging market size, upgrading industrial structure, and deepening digital financial usage. Notably, the digital finance channel exhibits a suppression effect, suggesting a complex role of financial digitalization in the early stages of rural development. To further ensure the robustness of our findings, we also conduct rigorous checks using the CSDID method and alternative proxy variables, consistently reaffirming the policy’s significant positive impact. These findings offer actionable evidence for deepening county-level factor-market reforms and advancing common prosperity, leading to policy recommendations on strengthening county digital infrastructure, tailoring e-commerce support systems, and improving the institutional environment for factor mobility.