This thesis paper investigates theoretically and empirically on service economy, with special emphasis on e-commerce. Chapter two theoretically analyzes the implications of the rise of domestic service economy on structural change with international trade between two large countries. The rest of the dissertation studies a specific service technological progress, the introduction of e-commerce, and emphasizes on small firms instead of above-scale firms as in the literature. Chapter three uses census data to figure the potential factors that affect firms’ e-commerce adoption decision, to describe the differences between e-commerce firms and their peers in geographical and industry distribution, ownership, scale, profitability, solvency, operating capacity, tax rate, and business...[ Read more ]

This thesis paper investigates theoretically and empirically on service economy, with special emphasis on e-commerce. Chapter two theoretically analyzes the implications of the rise of domestic service economy on structural change with international trade between two large countries. The rest of the dissertation studies a specific service technological progress, the introduction of e-commerce, and emphasizes on small firms instead of above-scale firms as in the literature. Chapter three uses census data to figure the potential factors that affect firms’ e-commerce adoption decision, to describe the differences between e-commerce firms and their peers in geographical and industry distribution, ownership, scale, profitability, solvency, operating capacity, tax rate, and business diversification, and to examine the relative importance of positive externality and competition effect within e-commerce. Chapter four treats e-commerce as a substitute of traditional physical retail stores, and emphasizes on the competition between the two. It quantifies the effect of the competition as well as the scale effect of e-commerce on their entry decisions, and studies the potential impact of economic development and industrial policies.