AI Preparedness and Digital Exports: Cross-Country Evidence on Scale, Specialization, and Structural Capacity

This study examines how artificial intelligence preparedness is associated with cross-country digital exports. It separates export scale from specialization, Information and Communication Technology services from technology-intensive goods, and cross-sectional levels from recent changes, and assesses whether digital services trade restrictiveness conditions these relationships. The 2023 International Monetary Fund Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Index is matched with 2022–2024 export outcomes and 2015–2019 baseline controls from World Development Indicators; Worldwide Governance Indicators enter only sensitivity specifications. Main specifications cover 140 countries, with smaller outcome-specific samples. Estimation uses ordinary least squares with heteroskedasticity-consistent robust standard errors, quantile regression with bootstrap-based joint inference, negative binomial checks, Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Index and Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index interaction, and same-sample level–change comparisons. Estimates are partial conditional correlations, not causal effects. Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Index is strongly and stably associated with the scale of Information and Communication Technology services exports, although the imprecision of the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood alternative indicates estimator sensitivity. No significant association is detected at the conditional mean of the Information and Communication Technology services export share; quantile estimates rise toward the upper-middle, but the coefficient function is not distinguishable from a constant when tested jointly. Goods-side coefficients are larger and more precisely estimated, yet a formal test detects no significant goods–services difference. The moderation test is underpowered; no significant association with near-term log change is detected. Artificial Intelligence Preparedness Index is a composite indicator of accumulated structural capacity, informative about digital export scale rather than composition or recent growth.