China Industrial Economics, 2020, Issue 5

Authors: LYU Yue, GU Wei, BAO Qun

Abstract:  Artificial intelligence(Al) is an important module for countries to build core competitiveness, and is also the main grasp of industrial transformation and global value chains participation. By using the robot data from the International Robot Federation(IRF) and the enterprise data from China Customs Data and Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database fiom 2000 to 2013, this paper provides highly detailed micro-enterprise data to research the impact of Al on Chinese enterprises' participation in global value chains. The main findings are: First, Al has significantly promoted the participation of Chinese enterprises in the division of global value chains.This result is still stable under multiple robustness tests and causal identification of instrumental variables. Second, the impact of AI on the embedded global value chains of Chinese enterprises is mainly concentrated on processing trade enterprises. Thirdly, this paper finds that after the international financial crisis in 2008, the promotion effect of Al on Chinese enterprises participation in the global value chains has been further enhanced. Fourthly, interms of influencing channels, this paper finds that the impact of AI on the leaping in global value chains is mainly achieved through two channels. One is to replace the labor engaged in low-end production to reduce costs; another is to improve the productivity of enterprises to improve the competitiveness of enterprises. Finally, the analysis at the industry level shows that Al will significantly promote the position of the industries in global value chains. Therefore, under the realistic situation of continuously rising labor costs, the emphasis on innovative development is to seize the opportunity of rapid development of AI, reduce manual input, and increase the productivity, of enterprises, thereby helping Chinese enterprises integrate into the global value chains division of labor system at a higher level.

Key Words: artificial intelligence; global value chains embedding; manufacturing enterprises