Can Cross-Border E-Commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zones Enhance Urban Export Resilience? — Multi-Period DID Evidence from Prefecture-Level Cities in China

Abstract

Based on panel data of 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2022, this paper treats the phased establishment of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive pilot zones as a quasi-natural experiment, and uses the multi-period difference-in-differences method to examine the relationship between the construction of comprehensive pilot zones and urban export resilience. The study finds that the comprehensive export resilience index of pilot cities shows a significant increase, and the direction and magnitude of the TWFE and CSDID estimates are basically consistent. The decomposition of indicators shows that this change is mainly reflected in the improvement of trade support conditions such as economic base, residents' income, financial services, and technological level, while direct trade indicators such as export scale, growth rate, volatility, and resistance have not yet shown significant changes within the sample period. Further tests show that some early pilot cities already exhibited strong development foundations and first-mover advantages before approval, suggesting that policy selection and advance layout may affect the estimation results. Overall, the short-term effect of the comprehensive pilot zones is more reflected in the capacity building of export resilience, and its transformation into direct trade performance still requires a longer time. This paper provides city-level empirical evidence for distinguishing the 'capacity-building effect' from the 'trade-outcome effect' of digital trade policies.