From rides to startups: the entrepreneurial impact of ride-hailing platforms

This paper examines the impact of ride-hailing platforms on entrepreneurship by exploiting the staggered rollout of Didi, China’s dominant ride-hailing service, across cities. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that platform entry increases per capita new business registrations. Mechanism analyses show that improved consumption convenience and expanded market access are the primary drivers, whereas income smoothing and failure protection play little role. These findings highlight substantial economic spillovers from digital platforms beyond their immediate markets and underscore the potential of digital infrastructure investments to foster entrepreneurship in developing economies.