International Trade 4.0: Determinants of Economic Cooperation in the Age of AI
Śledziewska, K. (2025). International Trade 4.0: Determinants of Economic Cooperation in the Age of AI. Scholar Scientific Publishing House.
Trade today runs on two tracks: alongside containers, fiber optics, servers, identifiers, interfaces, and data flow rules are gaining importance. The book shows how the triad of datafication, algorithmization, and platformization (DAP) is reshaping comparative advantage, value networks, and trade policy. It also introduces a powerful thesis: "digital distance"—the difference in compatibility, capabilities, and institutions that allow (or not) cooperation across borders—is becoming a new barrier.
About the book
The author proposes an interpretive framework for "Trade 4.0," in which not only technologies are crucial, but also the ability of states and companies to connect to cross-border data infrastructure: common vocabularies, document standards, e-invoicing, e-customs, data transfer rules, and algorithmic accountability. The focus shifts from the question "do we have the technology?" to "can we scale it and align it in international relations?"
The discussion begins with the fundamentals (technologies as infrastructure and DAP mechanisms), continues with the digital readiness of enterprises and the maturity of economies, and continues with new digital divides, international value-added networks, and the implications for trade policy in the age of AI. The final framework is the concept of digital distance as a barrier that can be operationalized and modeled (e.g., using the gravity approach).
What does it bring?
- Translates “AI and digitalization” into the language of commerce: shows where exactly new transaction costs arise (standards, interoperability, data semantics, algorithm compatibility).
- It organizes the DAP triad as the logic of the new globalization: data as an infrastructural resource, algorithms as rules of operation, platforms as a coordination mechanism.
- It shows how the digitalization of companies is actually connected with participation in international value networks - and why "being a subcontractor" increasingly means lack of access to data and standards.
- It reframes trade policy: as an infrastructure policy of co-management of data, algorithmic models and access to platforms, not just tariff liberalization.
- It introduces and develops the concept of digital distance as a barrier that can explain differences in trade intensity, similarly to geographic or institutional distance.
- It combines a theoretical perspective with operationalization: from definitions and mechanisms to the proposal of measures and models.
Key themes
Trade 4.0; datafication–algorithmization–platformization (DAP); digital transaction costs; interoperability and standards; digital maturity of companies and economies; digital divides; digital globalization; international value-added networks (GVC); servitization; digital trade (digitally ordered / digitally delivered); trade policy in the AI era; digital distancing.
Ideal for
- for those researching international trade, the digital economy, and public policy
- for analysts and decision-makers dealing with trade, industrial and digital policy
- for export, strategy and supply chain managers who want to understand the new bottlenecks in collaboration
- for people working with data regulations, interoperability, standards and compliance in cross-border exchange
- for students and PhD students looking for a framework that combines digitalization with trade and GVCs
What you will find inside
- Prologue and introduction: changing the rules of the game and justifying the concept of "Trade 4.0".
- Digital technologies as an infrastructure for economic transformation (including DAP).
- Digital transformation and enterprise readiness: conditions for effective absorption and sources of asymmetry.
- Transformation and digital maturity of the economy: macro mechanisms, measurement and the role of the state.
- The new digital divide: mapping global inequalities and their implications for position in the global economy.
- International value-added networks: new domains of exchange and a shift in advantage towards information resources.
Digital distance as a barrier: developing theoretical approaches and modeling the impact on trade.