人工智能如何提升企业生产效率?——基于劳动力技能结构调整的视角

How Does Artificial Intelligence Improve Firm Productivity?Based on the Perspective of Labor Skill Structure Adjustment

人工智能技术对实现经济的高质量发展具有重要意义。现有研究多聚焦于人工智能对宏观经济的影响,本文从企业层面考察了人工智能技术如何影响生产效率和劳动力技能结构。本文运用机器学习方法生成了人工智能词典,并对上市公司的年报和专利进行文本分析,进而构建了企业层面的人工智能指标。研究发现,人工智能显著提升了中国上市公司的生产率,并且该结论在一系列稳健性检验后依旧成立。在影响机制方面,人工智能通过促使企业减少常规低技能劳动力需求、增加非常规高技能劳动力需求的方式提升企业的生产率,这体现了企业劳动力技能结构的调整。异质性分析表明,产权性质、人才获得方式、劳动力保障、治理结构等企业层面因素对人工智能的生产率效应有较大影响。此外,企业所处的行业和地区层面因素也影响了人工智能的生产率效应。最后,本文发现人工智能提高了企业价值。本文加深了对微观企业层面人工智能在生产过程中所扮演角色的认知和理解,并为在微观企业层面推动人工智能技术发展提供了建议。

Artificial intelligence(AI)is of great importance for achieving high-quality economic development.Existing studies have mostly focused on the impact of AI on the macro-economy.This paper examines how AI affects production efficiency and labor skill structure at the firm level.We use machine learning methods to create an AI dictionary.With the AI dictionary,we analyze the textual data of annual reports and patents of listed companies,and construct AI proxies at the firm level.The results show that AI significantly increases the productivity of Chinese listed firms,and this finding is still valid after a series of robustness tests.In terms of mechanism,AI improves firms’productivity by enabling firms to reduce the demand for conventional low-skilled labor and increase the demand for unconventional high-skilled labor,which reflects the labor skill structure adjustment.Heterogeneity analysis shows that firm-level factors such as the nature of property rights,talent acquisition methods,labor security,and governance structure affect the productivity effects of AI.In addition,the industry and regional level factors in which firms are located also influence the productivity effects of AI.Finally,we find that AI improves firm value.This paper deepens the cognition and understanding of the role of AI in the production process at firm-level,and gives recommendations to promote the development of artificial intelligence technology for firms.