The Impact of Postponing 2020 Tokyo Olympics on the Happiness of O-MO-TE-NA-SHI Workers in Tourism: A Consequence of COVID-19

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper presents an interesting topic for the ongoing times. It is technically correct and well written and organized.

Author Response

There is no request from referee 1.

Reviewer 2 Report

I found the topic of the manuscript interesting and very actual. I understand the main message the authors wanted to give a reader, but I also feel the manuscript has to be significantly improved to be ready for other/newer submission.

First, I will describe general drawbacks of the manuscript.

• I see the major shortcoming of the manuscript in the fact that it has very little to do sustainability. Since the journal name is Sustainability (I have no information if the manuscript was submitted to a special of the journal), I would expect that the main "keywords" sustainability to be the centerpoint of the article. Authors mention sustainability of Olympic games only just in one sentence at lines 381-382. It would make a better sense to flip their manuscript design, i.e. concentrate on sustainability issues in connection to mega events (such as Olympics) and show or testify their ideas by specific case study (on an example of hapiness/income effects). In this form, the article is "only" a sociological probe into the issue of tourism of mega event (Olympics). Moreover, giving the reader a descriptive information, while very little about the overall context (of tourism vs. mega events, health issues vs. mega events, sustainable economics vs. mega events etc.)
• The other significant drawback is the methodological part. The whole section 3.3 Methods is poorly written and consequently Restults section unclear. From a reader perspective, I have no specific idea what "α" symbols stand for, nor what to imagine under the Wave2/3 dummy. Authors mention that they reflect effect of postponement of the Olympics, and state of emergency, BUT I do not understand, how their measured these (by the survey? Did authors use a scale for it? What is, if there even is a number, the "number" behind?). Similarly with the Toursim dummy. By reading the formula (lines 226 and 227) and from the explanatory text, the Tourism take on 0/1 values, therefore, if there are tourism/restaurant workers (Toursim dummy = 1), the dummy counted AND also dummy without "x Tourism" is counted. Which leads me to duplication of that dummy. Maybe my interpretation is wrong, but again, it should be absolutely clear from the methodology how it is calculated. On top of that, authors did not mention (in abstract or introduction) that they applied regression analysis in their research. So suddenly, the section 3.3 starts with the equation. Again, I asked myself - why equation now? And for what purpose is this equation? Authors should "prepare" a reader for that.

All these comments/suggestions lead to me to reject the manuscript at this stage.

 

Other comments/suggestions:

• Introduction - there are sharp/sudden jumps between paragraphs (e.g. line 46-47, or 61-62), which disrupt the flow of the main idea in the introduction. I asked myself - how does this paragraph relate to the previous paragraph?
• Lines 61 to 69 - could be erased, I do not see it fitting into the introductory part
• Lines 87-88 - "Several unpaid volunteers..." Mega event such as Olympics requires just only "several" volunteers? Too vague sentence. And similar vagueness can be found throughout the introduction.
• Charts (Figs. 1-6) - there is no label on y axes, therefore, it is not clear what the numbers mean
• Fig.1 - "Note" part - I think there should be a word "cumulative" number of total infected persons. 
• Section 3.1 - the first wave have response rate 54.7%. The response rate in the second and third wave was 80.2%, 92.2% respectively. Does it mean that the second wave's response rate was 80.2% from that 54.7% (analogically for the third wave)? This should be clarified.
• line 185 - typo in "waves 1-5". Should be 1-3, probably
• Results - there should be some short reasoning why authors further divided the survey for sub-samples (lines 262-263).
• Tables - since Wave 1 was used as a reference, it could be ommited in tables.
• Conclusions - the very last paragraph do not fit into the conclusions part. It should be placed either in the introduction or in the discussion (if at all)

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This study explores the impact of COVID-19 with the postponement of the Olympics on the wellbeing (happiness and the expected income) of workers in the tourism sector of the host city where the event was scheduled to be held. (the authors provide their result both for sample including the main city (Tokyo) and excluding this city).

The authors gather data with a survey over the period March to April 202 which includes before the postponement, directly after the postponement and few weeks after the postponement.

 

Authors utilize the natural experiment setup created by the pandemic, and they survey 4359 (different response rate over the 3 different waves of the survey) and they create a biweekly panel data. The result of their estimation is based on a Fixed Effect panel data model.

I have few concerns and recommendations which I think will improve the paper.

 

 

• In the abstract define Happiness. Also refer to the fact that expected income is an alternate outcome variable of interest in your study. Also, the division of the sample to inclusion and exclusion of Tokyo is interesting and I think it mut be mentioned in the abstract as well.

 

 

• Section 3.2: Figure 2 is providing the distribution of expected probability of holding Olympics. So, I believe it refers to the first wave. However, the timeline (wave) for other graphs in this section (Figure3 and Figure 4) is not clear. Is it all waves combined? The happiness of the observations changed across the waves so does figure 3 refer to the first wave? If not, combining all the waves’ responses is not a good idea. I recommend having different plots for each wave. Or very clearly mentioning which waves are included in each Figure.

 

• Line 181 better to use future-tense (we will use the subsample) rather than past tense (we used). The reader will find the regressions later on in the paper. Referring to the past is confusing.

 

• Line 185 I believe the authors are referring to wave 1-3 and not 1-5.

 

• Line 185 I believe the authors are referring to Figure 3 and not Figure 2. Figure 3 is depicting the happiness distribution. Again, it is also unclear if it is a combination of the observation in all three waves combined or is it for pre-postponements.

 

• With having a big proportion of the observations having a neutral position with respect to the expected probability of holding Olympics (in Figure 2), and according to the fact that the authors divide the sample by high and low expected probabilities which excludes those who fall in the neutral zone, the number of observations reported in the tables (Table 1 reports 5093 observations in the high probability column) while the authors mention in the paper the observation in the first wave I believe is 4359. In the data section, or somewhere else in the paper the details of the sample size for each wave must be explained in detail.

 

• In the regression with Fixed Effect model, there could be covariates included. Such as the characteristics of the individuals, female versus male, and household size, and so on. The set-up of the model is interesting and accurate. I also understand data limitations, and of course the authors include dummies for tourism; But again if there exist data over other characteristic and occupations, they could be added in the regression. Happiness and perceptions depend on the characteristics to a great extent.

 

• Another method to approach the regression specified in this paper is Random Effect method. Why authors prefer Fixed Effects over Random Effect. It would be informative to use both approaches and let a Hausman Test decide which method more appropriate. Unless the authors have a justification for it which must be included in; for example; a footnote.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

I found the changes and your replies to my comments very vague and insufficient. I think the major drawback of the paper has not been addressed at all. Adding one sentence and thinking that that's enough is simply not adequate.

I see very little changes leading to the manuscript improvement and I still think it has to be redone in order to be published.