The Moderating Factors of Cross-Border E-Commerce Development Dimensions and the International Trade Value: Pre-Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Era

Mary O’  Penetrante,; Yaodan  Liang,

The Moderating Factors of Cross-Border E-Commerce Development Dimensions and the International Trade Value: Pre-Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Era

Discipline: Economics

Abstract:

This study investigates the moderating factors influencing the relationship between cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) development dimensions and international trade value among Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) member states prior to the agreement's enforcement. Utilizing a descriptive-correlational research design and secondary data from 2018 to 2021, the study applies Kruskal-Wallis H test and Spearman’s Rho to assess the influence of key CBEC dimensions Internet penetration, trade facilitation, liner shipping connectivity, and logistics performance on import and export values, while controlling for macroeconomic indicators such as GDP, trade dependency, population, and tariff-weighted averages. Findings reveal that liner shipping connectivity and logistics performance are strongly and significantly correlated with trade value, whereas Internet penetration and trade facilitation exhibit weaker or context-dependent effects. When moderated by border processing time, the impact of Internet penetration, trade facilitation, and logistics performance shifts to negative, highlighting potential inefficiencies in trade execution despite digital readiness. The results emphasize the strategic importance of physical infrastructure and border efficiency over digital capacity alone in fostering trade competitiveness in the pre-RCEP landscape. These insights offer vital policy implications for optimizing CBEC-driven trade, especially among emerging economies within the RCEP bloc.

References:

Chen, Q., & Li, D. (2022). Cross-border e-commerce development, infrastructure connectivity, and trade costs: A case study of China’s exports to ASEAN countries. Business Economics Research, (07), 147-150.
Chen, W. H., Lin, Y. C., Bag, A., & Chen, C. L. (2023). Influence factors of small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises in the cross-border e-commerce platforms. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 18(1), 416-440.
Conover, W. J. (1999). Practical Nonparametric Statistics (3^rd ed.). Wiley.
Creswell, J. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5^th ed.). SAGE.
Dong, Y., & Liu, J. (2023, July). Impact of trade facilitation on cross-border e-commerce: A perspective from China. In Proceedings of the 2023 14^th International Conference on E-business, Management and Economics (pp. 38-44).
Du, Y. X., & Zhang, Z. (2018). Analysis on the impact of the development of cross- border e-commerce on China’s international trade. Foreign Trade, (1), 4.
Field, A. (2013). Discovering Statistics Using IBM SPSS Statistics (4^th ed.). SAGE.
He, Y., Wu, R., & Choi, Y. J. (2021). International logistics and cross-border E-commerce trade: who matters whom?. Sustainability, 13(4), 1745.
Johnston, M. P. (2014). Secondary data analysis: A method of which the time has come. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 3(3), 619–626.
Ma, S. Z., Li, Y. C., Zhang, D. H., et al. (2024). Digital service trade barriers and cross-border e-commerce exports: evidence from China’s cross-border e-commerce waybill data. International Economics and Trade Research, 40(11), 40 - 56.
Peng, Q. (2021, March). A Study on the influence of internet cross-border e-commerce on China’s import and export trade and development strategy. In 2021 2^nd International Conference on E-Commerce and Internet Technology (ECIT) (pp. 255-258). IEEE.
Su, Z. Z. (2022). Research on the Advantages and Disadvantages of Cross-Border E-Commerce in International Economy and Trade. Modern Marketing (6), 118-120.
Wang, C., & Sharma, V. (2021). India’s RCEP dilemma with China: Beyond the legal texts. Pacific Focus, 36(1), 40-62.
Wang, G., & Cao, Z. (2021). An Empirical Study on the Trade Impact of Cross border E-commerce on ASEAN and China under the Framework of RECP. In E3S Web of Conferences (Vol. 275, p. 01039). EDP Sciences.
Yang, L., Dong, J., & Yang, W. (2024). Analysis of Regional Competitiveness of China’s Cross-Border E-Commerce. Sustainability, 16(3), 1007.
Yang, Y. (2022). Selection method of cross‐border e‐commerce export logistics mode based on collaborative filtering algorithm. Journal of Mathematics, 2022(1), 6885432.