Artificial Intelligence and Labor Income Share: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-701-9_23How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence; Labor Income Share; Financing Constraints; Human Capital Structure; Chinese Listed Companies

Abstract

While the global labor income share has faced a systemic decline, the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains a subject of intense debate. This paper utilizes a sample of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2009 to 2022 to empirically examine the relationship between AI application and corporate labor income share. By employing AI-related patent data to measure technological adoption at the micro-enterprise level, the study finds that AI application significantly increases the corporate labor income share. Mechanism analysis reveals that this positive effect is primarily driven by two channels: the mitigation of financing constraints through reduced information asymmetry, and the optimization of human capital structure as firms shift toward high-skilled labor. Further investigation indicates that the promoting effect of AI is more pronounced in non-state-owned enterprises and firms led by executives with digital backgrounds. These findings suggest that AI acts as a productivity-enhancing force that fosters a “human-machine collaborative” model rather than a simple substitution for labor. The study provides a theoretical basis for policies aimed at accelerating digital transformation while ensuring technological dividends are effectively shared with workers.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Yuting Zhang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/30
TI  - Artificial Intelligence and Labor Income Share: Empirical Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies
BT  - Proceedings of the 2026 11th International Conference on Social Sciences and Economic Development (ICSSED 2026)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 214
EP  - 220
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-701-9_23
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-701-9_23
ID  - Zhang2026
ER  -