Artificial intelligence, productivity, and economic growth: Global evidence and emerging policy implications

Jainendra Kumar Verma, Kamal De Krishna · International Journal of Financial Management and Economics · 1 Jun 2026

Where this sits in the debate

Will AI actually boost productivity and growth? · its finding: it depends (why studies differ)

Direction of the finding as read from the abstract by an AI model (AI-written).

Key takeaway AI-written

A PRISMA-guided narrative review of 28 studies (2020-2026) concludes AI generates substantial firm-level productivity gains, but the aggregate effect on macroeconomic growth is moderate and strongly conditioned by digital infrastructure, human capital, and institutional quality. The authors propose an 'Adaptive Diffusion-Complementarity' framework to explain why large micro-level gains don't automatically translate into large macro-level growth.

The paper in three steps AI-written

Written by an AI agent from the paper's abstract, which is the primary source and is quoted below.

The question

How does AI adoption relate to productivity and economic growth across advanced, emerging and developing economies?

The approach

A systematic narrative review following PRISMA 2020 of 28 studies published from 2020 to 2026, selected from 37 relevant publications.

The findings

Firm-level productivity effects are reported as large while aggregate growth effects are moderate, with the size of gains depending on digital infrastructure, human capital, institutions and how well AI complements workers. The paper proposes an Adaptive Diffusion-Complementarity framework.

How to read it: review. A synthesis of existing studies — breadth over novelty; quality depends on what it includes and excludes.

Limitations and counterpoints AI-written

The review covers a small set of 28 studies, and the abstract gives no pooled effect sizes.

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a transformational technology with important implications for productivity and economic growth. This paper presents a systematic narrative review of studies published between 2020 and 2026 following the PRISMA 2020 framework to examine the relationship between AI adoption and productivity and growth outcomes. Based on a larger pool of 37 relevant publications, 28 studies were selected and reviewed, with a synthesis of evidence on labour productivity, total factor productivity, labour market reallocation and macroeconomic growth in advanced, emerging and developing economies. The results show that AI creates large productivity gains, but the magnitude of the productivity gain is determined by the digital infrastructure, the human capital, the quality of institutions, and the AI-human complementarity. The firm-level effects are large, but the aggregate growth effects are moderate. The paper develops the Adaptive Diffusion-Complementarity (ADC) Framework to account for these dynamics, and highlights the importance of productivity, labor reallocation and structural transformation in mediating the growth effects of AI. The study highlights the need for supportive policies to maximize the economic benefits of AI.

About this publication

Academic journal. Published in an academic journal — typically peer-reviewed before publication, though indexing alone doesn't guarantee review depth.

Published: 2026 (5 months ago)
Citations: 0 (OpenAlex)