From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-commerce in China
Princeton university Press, 2024, Amazon Link, first chapter Preview
Awards and Recognition:
Silver medal, 2025 Axiom Business Book Award (International Business/Globalization category);
A best Book of the Year on China, China-Britain Business Council, 2024
a Notable Business Book in 2025, PracticalE-commerce
Featured by:
nPR Academic Minute, The wire China, Focus Magazine, Pekingnology, arab News, sixth Tone, politics and Rights Review (in english, French, & Spanish), Asian Review of Books, shanghai Review of Books, Frontiers of Digital Legal Studies, China Books Review, the initium(端传媒), China AI Newsletter, georgetown MSB Office Hours, Georgtown Faculty Spotlight, Huxiu (虎嗅)
Podcast: new books Network podcast, Asian Review OF books,
In-betweenness (时差, in Chinese), “I have a friend” Podcast by Prof. Dong (我有一个朋友, in Chinese)
How the world’s largest e-commerce market highlights a digital path to development
How do states build vital institutions for market development? Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule of law, contract enforcement, and loan access. In From Click to Boom, Lizhi Liu suggests a digital solution: governments strategically outsourcing tasks of institutional development and enforcement to digital platforms—a process she calls “institutional outsourcing.”
China’s e-commerce boom showcases this digital path to development. In merely two decades, China built from scratch a two-trillion-dollar e-commerce market, with 800 million users, seventy million jobs, and nearly fifty percent of global online retail sales. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Liu argues, this market boom occurred because of weak government institutions, not despite them. Gaps in government institutions compelled e-commerce platforms to build powerful private institutions for contract enforcement, fraud detection, and dispute resolution. For a surprisingly long period, the authoritarian government acquiesced, endorsed, and even partnered with this private institutional building despite its disruptive nature. Drawing on a plethora of interviews, original surveys, proprietary data, and a field experiment, Liu shows that the resulting e-commerce boom had far-reaching effects on China.
Institutional outsourcing nonetheless harbors its own challenges. With inadequate regulation, platforms may abuse market power, while excessive regulation stifles institutional innovation. China’s regulatory oscillations toward platforms—from laissez-faire to crackdown and back to support—underscore the struggle to strike the right balance.
(Book cover design wins the 2025 Jacket and Cover Selections, with credit going to Hunter Finch)
How do states build vital institutions for market development? Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule of law, contract enforcement, and loan access. In From Click to Boom, Lizhi Liu suggests a digital solution: governments strategically outsourcing tasks of institutional development and enforcement to digital platforms—a process she calls “institutional outsourcing.”
China’s e-commerce boom showcases this digital path to development. In merely two decades, China built from scratch a two-trillion-dollar e-commerce market, with 800 million users, seventy million jobs, and nearly fifty percent of global online retail sales. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Liu argues, this market boom occurred because of weak government institutions, not despite them. Gaps in government institutions compelled e-commerce platforms to build powerful private institutions for contract enforcement, fraud detection, and dispute resolution. For a surprisingly long period, the authoritarian government acquiesced, endorsed, and even partnered with this private institutional building despite its disruptive nature. Drawing on a plethora of interviews, original surveys, proprietary data, and a field experiment, Liu shows that the resulting e-commerce boom had far-reaching effects on China.
Institutional outsourcing nonetheless harbors its own challenges. With inadequate regulation, platforms may abuse market power, while excessive regulation stifles institutional innovation. China’s regulatory oscillations toward platforms—from laissez-faire to crackdown and back to support—underscore the struggle to strike the right balance.
(Book cover design wins the 2025 Jacket and Cover Selections, with credit going to Hunter Finch)
Endorsements:
“...offers fresh answers to classical debates in the twenty-first century context, blazing a new path for future studies on China’s digital economy.”—Yuen Yuen Ang, Johns Hopkins University
“...a fascinating account of how Chinese big tech rose to such powerful heights and put China in the forefront of many new digital industries. An essential read for understanding China’s enormous success in e-commerce and answering larger questions about China’s development path and its future trajectory.”—Mary Gallagher, University of Notre Dame
“...a masterful and captivating work of scholarship that poses – and persuasively resolves – crucial puzzles regarding the successful development of China’s e-commerce markets in the absence of strong legal institutions. Liu’s provocative insights offer an innovative approach to understanding institutional development in China and beyond.”—Brian S. Silverman, University of Toronto
"...will quickly become the leading English-language research monograph on the governance functions performed by China’s e-commerce platforms, and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how and why this occurred. Its combination of research methods is cutting-edge and sets a new standard in the field.”—Kellee Tsai, Northeastern University
"...a landmark book, one of the best books I have read on political economy and Chinese politics in the last two decades.”
—Yuhua Wang, Harvard University
“...offers fresh answers to classical debates in the twenty-first century context, blazing a new path for future studies on China’s digital economy.”—Yuen Yuen Ang, Johns Hopkins University
“...a fascinating account of how Chinese big tech rose to such powerful heights and put China in the forefront of many new digital industries. An essential read for understanding China’s enormous success in e-commerce and answering larger questions about China’s development path and its future trajectory.”—Mary Gallagher, University of Notre Dame
“...a masterful and captivating work of scholarship that poses – and persuasively resolves – crucial puzzles regarding the successful development of China’s e-commerce markets in the absence of strong legal institutions. Liu’s provocative insights offer an innovative approach to understanding institutional development in China and beyond.”—Brian S. Silverman, University of Toronto
"...will quickly become the leading English-language research monograph on the governance functions performed by China’s e-commerce platforms, and a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how and why this occurred. Its combination of research methods is cutting-edge and sets a new standard in the field.”—Kellee Tsai, Northeastern University
"...a landmark book, one of the best books I have read on political economy and Chinese politics in the last two decades.”
—Yuhua Wang, Harvard University