Submit a Manuscript to the Journal
Applied Economics
For a Special Issue on
Productivity, Risk and Economic Performance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Manuscript deadline
Special Issue Editor(s)
Amir Arjomandi,
School of Business, University of Wollongong, Australia
amira@uow.edu.au
Zhiming Cheng,
Macquarie Business School, Macquarie University, Australia
zhiming.cheng@mq.edu.au
Reza Kiani Mavi,
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Australia
r.kianimavi@ecu.edu.au
Productivity, Risk and Economic Performance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how firms organise production, allocate resources, make decisions and interact with workers and markets. While AI has created strong expectations of productivity gains, these gains are unlikely to be automatic or evenly distributed. Their realisation may depend on complementary investments in skills, management practices, organisational restructuring, digital capabilities and other forms of intangible capital. At the same time, AI adoption may generate new operational, organisational, labour-market and financial risks.
This Special Issue seeks high-quality empirical and applied research examining when, how and under what conditions AI generates productivity improvements and stronger economic performance, and what risks and adjustment costs accompany these gains. Particular interest is placed on the mechanisms through which AI affects firms, workers, industries and economies, and on explaining why its economic effects differ across contexts.
Suggested topics include:
- AI adoption, productivity and firm performance, including effects on productivity, value added, costs, profitability and broader measures of performance.
- AI, labour productivity, skills, employment and organisational change, including worker productivity, task composition, management practices and organisational structures.
- Complementary investments and barriers to AI-driven productivity gains, including human capital, digital capabilities, management quality and organisational capital.
- AI, innovation, entrepreneurship, investment and resource allocation, including how AI affects innovation, entrepreneurial activity and investment decisions.
- Heterogeneous effects of AI across firms, workers, industries, regions and economies, and the economic and institutional factors explaining these differences.
- AI-driven productivity gains, economic risks and adjustment costs, including operational, organisational, labour-market and financial risks.
- Aggregate productivity, economic growth and policy implications of AI, including how firm- and industry-level adoption translates into broader economic outcomes.
The Special Issue aims to move beyond the question of whether AI affects productivity and instead examine why productivity effects differ, what conditions are required to realise them, and how productivity gains interact with economic risks and adjustment costs. By bringing together evidence across different levels of analysis, the Special Issue seeks to provide a coherent and policy-relevant applied-economics perspective on the economic consequences of AI.
Submission Instructions
Submission instructions
- The Special Issue welcomes original empirical and applied research papers that address the themes outlined in the Call for Papers.
- Manuscripts should follow the standard author and formatting requirements of Applied Economics.
- Manuscripts will initially be handled by the Guest Editors and will undergo the normal peer-review process, including two independent referee reports.
- Authors should not submit manuscripts through the standard ScholarOne route unless specifically instructed to do so. Following completion of the review process and a recommendation by the Guest Editors, authors of papers proceeding to the next stage will be provided with instructions for uploading their manuscript to ScholarOne using the appropriate fee-waiver code.
- Guest Editors will manage the review process and make recommendations; final publication decisions will be made by the Editor-in-Chief or a Co-Editor of Applied Economics.
- Revised manuscripts are expected during October–December 2027, with final editorial decisions anticipated during January–March 2028.
- Publication will follow the journal’s normal publication schedule.