The death of language barriers? An empirical study based on China’s cross-border e-commerce

Based on China's cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) logistics order data from 2017 to 2019, we examine the impact of language barriers on CBEC. By constructing a comprehensive language barrier index, we find that, unlike offline trade, China exhibits higher CBEC exports to countries with greater language barriers. Mechanism analysis indicates that this positive correlation arises from CBEC effectively overcoming phonological linguistic disparities and compensating for the offline trade gap caused by language barriers. Our study contributes to understanding the evolution of the gravity model in the context of CBEC and provides new insights into international business activities.