Journal of Statistics and Information

Artificial intelligence has become a key driver in the latest wave of technological advancements,offering new avenues for achieving China' s "dual carbon" goals while unlocking the potential of the "intelligent dividend." Against this research background,this paper adopts the cutting-edge by-product method to construct a data envelopment model,meticulously estimating the marginal carbon emission reduction costs at the enterprise level.Based on panel data of Chinese listed companies from 2013 to 2023,an "energy-saving,consumption-reducing,and efficiency-enhancing oriented" lexicon is constructed to measure firms' artificial intelligence levels,and the impact of artificial intelligence on marginal abatement costs and its mechanisms are empirically examined.The findings reveal that artificial intelligence significantly reduces enterprises' marginal carbon emission reduction costs,with this conclusion remaining robust after a series of endogeneity and robustness tests.Further mechanism analysis shows that artificial intelligence primarily affects marginal reduction costs through three pathways:fostering green technological innovation,promoting energy structure transformation,and lowering carbon emission intensity.Meanwhile,government environmental governance and market competition levels have a promoting effect on their emission reduction effects.Heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that artificial intelligence notably lowers the marginal carbon emission reduction costs for enterprises in nonlabor-intensive,non-capital-intensive,non-high-energy-consuming industries,and high and new technology industry,with particularly significant effects in state-owned enterprises,large enterprises,and those in eastern China.Based on this,it is recommended that the government increase fiscal support for intelligent emission reduction technologies and green innovation,improve environmental protection regulations and supervision standards,maintain a fair market competition order,implement differentiated emission reduction policies based on industry characteristics,and promote coordinated emission reduction.