IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_11642.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comparative Advantage in AI-Intensive Industries: Evidence from US Imports

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Bonfiglioli
  • Rosario Crinò
  • Mattia Filomena
  • Gino Gancia

Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of comparative advantage in Artificial Intelligence (AI)-intensive industries using a comprehensive dataset of US imports from 68 countries across 79 manufacturing and service industries over the period 1999–2019. Using a novel measure of AI intensity based on the prevalence of occupations requiring expertise in machine learning and data analysis, we identify key factors influencing exports in AI-intensive industries. Our analysis reveals that countries with larger STEM graduate populations, broader Internet penetration and higher export volumes exhibit stronger export performance in AI-intensive industries. In contrast, regulatory barriers to digital trade are associated with lower AI-intensive exports. These results are robust to controlling for traditional sources of comparative advantage and addressing potential threats to identification. Our findings have implications for understanding competitiveness in the digital economy and highlight that fostering capabilities in data-driven industries may be particularly important due to their pronounced scale economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Rosario Crinò & Mattia Filomena & Gino Gancia, 2025. "Comparative Advantage in AI-Intensive Industries: Evidence from US Imports," CESifo Working Paper Series 11642, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11642
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11642.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    artificial intelligence; international trade; digital data; comparative advantage;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11642. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.