The impact of artificial intelligence on the sustainability of international trade enterprises

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a core driver of productivity change and a significant factor influencing corporate sustainable development. This study examines the impact and mechanisms through which AI affects the sustainable development performance of international trade enterprises in China. Utilizing an unbalanced panel dataset of 3853 firms from 2010 to 2023, the study employs a two-way fixed effects model to analyze financial and environmental social responsibility performance. The findings demonstrate that AI significantly improves financial performance and environmental social responsibility, thereby enhancing overall sustainable development performance. This conclusion is robust across various endogeneity and robustness tests, including lagged core explanatory variables, instrumental variable methods, Heckman tests, DID tests, elimination of extreme observations, exclusion of abnormal year samples, substitution of core explanatory variables, and unrelated industry regression. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the positive impact of AI on sustainable development performance is more pronounced in the eastern region and among non-state-owned firms. Mechanism analysis reveals that AI enhances financial performance and sustainability through total factor productivity (TFP) and increased average wages, although it has a negative impact on environmental social responsibility performance. Based on these results, the study provides policymakers and business managers with relevant recommendations for leveraging AI to promote sustainable business development. This research is the first to comprehensively explore the impact of AI on the sustainability performance of international trading firms within a unified framework, thereby expanding the existing literature and offering valuable insights for both policymakers and practitioners.