From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-commerce in China
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Book Talk - "From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-commerce in China"
Professor Lizhi Liu, Georgetown University
Thursday February 5th, 12:30 to 2:00 PM, Arts 160
Co-sponsored by the Institute for the Study of International Development and the Centre for Global Chinese Studies
Abstract:
Lizhi Liu is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the author of the award-winning book From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-commerce in China (Princeton University Press, 2024). This book asks how states build essential market institutions when political or technical barriers hinder the establishment of the rule of law. Liu suggests a digital solution: governments strategically outsourcing tasks of institutional development and enforcement to digital platforms -a process she calls "institutional outsourcing." Through extensive interviews, original surveys, 28 million proprietary data points, and a field experiment across three Chinese provinces, Liu illustrates how China's 800-million-user e-commerce market emerged from scratch and why this market has profoundly transformed the nation's economy, politics, and society.
Liu's research on the politics of trade and technology has earned multiple awards and funding from prestigious institutions, including the Gates Foundation. Her work has been featured in Bloomberg, WIRED, the WIRE China, and the South China Morning Post. Notably, her book was recognized by the China-Britain Business Council as one of the “Best Books on China of 2024” and won a silver medal in the 2025 Axiom Business Book Awards (International Business/Globalization category), in addition to receiving two prestigious dissertation awards for its earlier draft.