← Search

Journal of Financial Economics Vol. 151 2024

Artificial intelligence, firm growth, and product innovation

Tania Babina1; Anastassia Fedyk2; Alex Xi He3; James Hodson4

1 Columbia University · 2 University of California, Berkeley · 3 University of Maryland, College Park · 4 Jožef Stefan Institute

open access

Abstract

We study the use and economic impact of AI technologies. We propose a new measure of firm-level AI investments using employee resumes. Our measure reveals a stark increase in AI investments across sectors. AI-investing firms experience higher growth in sales, employment, and market valuations. This growth comes primarily through increased product innovation. Our results are robust to instrumenting AI investments using firms' exposure to universities' supply of AI graduates. AI-powered growth concentrates among larger firms and is associated with higher industry concentration. Our results highlight that new technologies like AI can contribute to growth and superstar firms through product innovation.

DOI
10.1016/j.jfineco.2023.103745
Volume
151
Pages
103745
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite