An Evaluation of the Tourism-Induced Environmental Kuznets Curve (T-EKC) Hypothesis: Evidence from G7 Countries

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Article under peer-review: An Evaluation of The Tourism-Induced Environmental Kuznets 2 Curve (T-EKC) Hypothesis: Evidence From G7 Countries

Dear Authors,

I appreciate your research taking into account that the subject on impacts degrees on CO2 emissions is very discussed in our days. However I have some recommendations for you:

1. Introduction: good but maybe consider split it in two parts: introduction and literature review.
2. Empirical Model and Methodoloy: well presented but maybe make some formatting changes (center the equations, erase the blank spaces etc.).
3. Empirical findings: well presented.

4. Conclusion

From the point of view the journal scope can be suggested to give more description and discussion of the obtained results. In this form the paper seems to be a bit more ’theoretical and methodological’ one.

In my perspective, the structure of this chapter should be revised to include:

• Brief contextualization
• Brief methodology
• Main findings
• Practical implications
• Novelty of the study
• Limitations of the study

They are almost all there but authors should focus in highlighting relevant information and move some content to other parts of the text, to make conclusions stronger. Title, abstract and conclusions are significant parts of a manuscript to persuade the reader to read it. Please consider that.

References: do not strictly follow the journal guidelines.

Author Response

Answers to the Reviewer

 

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewers for his/her very valuable, careful and constructive comments about our manuscript. These are our answers to the comments of the reviewers. Changes and corrections were shown (Track Changes) in the revised manuscript.

 

 

REVIEWER 1

 

Comments of Reviewer 1:

 

1. Introduction: good but maybe consider split it in two parts: introduction and literature review. √
2. Empirical Model and Methodology: well-presented but maybe make some formatting changes (center the equations, erase the blank spaces etc.). √
3. Empirical findings: well presented.
4. Conclusion

From the point of view the journal scope can be suggested to give more description and discussion of the obtained results. In this form the paper seems to be a bit more ’theoretical and methodological’ one. √

In my perspective, the structure of this chapter should be revised to include:

• Brief contextualization √
• Brief methodology √
• Main findings √
• Practical implications √
• Novelty of the study √
• Limitations of the study √

They are almost all there but authors should focus in highlighting relevant information and move some content to other parts of the text, to make conclusions stronger. Title, abstract and conclusions are significant parts of a manuscript to persuade the reader to read it. √

Please consider that.

References: do not strictly follow the journal guidelines. √

 

 

Answers for Reviewer 1

Our reviewer is so right. We corrected the format from our revised manuscript. In addition, we reorganized the conclusion part and added practical implications, novelty of the study and limitations…

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals wit important problem, the impact of tourism developmnet on GHG emisisons however the authors do not demonstrate understanding of relationship between increase in value added generated by tourism sector, renewable energy consumption in torism sector and GHG  emissions in tourism sector. The empyrical findings whihc are strange and contradictory have to be explained.

Empirical findings of paper indicated that the tourism-induced EKC hypothesis is valid only for France and the rise in renewable energy  consumption has a positive impact on CO2 emissions in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. However, an increase in international tourist receipts has a negative impact on CO2 emissions in Italy. So, increase in renewable energy consumption in Italy has impact on the rise of GHG emissions in the country or what?

Authors should distinguish sector of tourism and GHG emissions and use of renewables in tourim sectors of G7. In this paper they were not able to fo this therefore the result can be completelly wrong from what is logically expected.

Authors should revise they manuscript and analyse GHG and renewables in tourism sector. Is it GHG emissions in carbon equivalent or this is really just CO2 emissions analysed in sector?

Where are many questions without answer, the clarityis lacking in this manuscript for sure.  

 

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewers for his/her very valuable, careful and constructive comments about our manuscript. These are our answers to the comments of the reviewers. Changes and corrections were shown (Track Changes) in the revised manuscript.

 

REVIEWER 2

Comments of Reviewer 2:

 

1. The paper deals wit important problem, the impact of tourism developmnet on GHG emisisons however the authors do not demonstrate understanding of relationship between increase in value added generated by tourism sector, renewable energy consumption in torism sector and GHG  emissions in tourism sector. The empyrical findings whihc are strange and contradictory have to be explained.

 

2. Empirical findings of paper indicated that the tourism-induced EKC hypothesis is valid only for France and the rise in renewable energy  consumption has a positive impact on CO2 emissions in France, Italy, the UK, and the US. However, an increase in international tourist receipts has a negative impact on CO2 emissions in Italy. So, increase in renewable energy consumption in Italy has impact on the rise of GHG emissions in the country or what?

 

3. Authors should distinguish sector of tourism and GHG emissions and use of renewables in tourim sectors of G7. In this paper they were not able to fo this therefore the result can be completelly wrong from what is logically expected.

 

4. Authors should revise they manuscript and analyse GHG and renewables in tourism sector. Is it GHG emissions in carbon equivalent or this is really just CO2 emissions analysed in sector?

 

5. Where are many questions without answer, the clarityis lacking in this manuscript for sure.  

 

Answers for Reviewer 2

 

The authors would like to respond to your concerns one by one as follows:

1. The authors restate the objective of this research to make the subsequent arguments clear. The purpose of this research is to investigate the validity of the EKC relationship (which is, inverted U-shaped GDP-CO2 relationship), including the tourism receipts and renewable energy consumption as the additional explanatory variables. Because of the inclusion of tourism receipts in the model, the authors named this EKC version as the tourism-induced EKC. In econometric modeling, the dependent variables are sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of explanatory variables. Given this, the authors were interested in whether the GDP-CO2 relationship establishes an EKC (inverted U) or not. In this regard, this research's purpose was not focused on the direct impacts of tourism development on CO2 or GHG emissions. That is why the tourism sector emissions are not taken into account, which is beyond this research's scope. To reiterate, this is an impact analysis study to empirically test the contributions of the main variable of GDP, along with tourism receipts and renewable energy consumption, on CO2 emissions.
2. The authors restate the obtained results and then discuss the possible confusion. The tourism receipts had a positive (increasing) impact on CO2 emissions in France. Renewable energy consumption had a negative (decreasing) impact on CO2 emissions. And, the EKC hypothesis (which is, a positive impact of GDP and a negative impact of squared GDP) was valid only in France. The authors understand that some words' reporting style (like, positive impact and negative impact) was slightly lacking clarity, which is now improved. Basically, the authors wanted to convey the other way around, but the structured phrases created a slight confusion. On the contrary, the empirical results reported in the last version of the manuscript clearly indicated what is being conveyed. The delivery of those words is not rectified to give improved clarity throughout the manuscript.
3. What expert reviewer has mentioned at this point is totally different research with different objectives. The purpose of this research was not focused on calculation of the tourism sector's CO2 emissions. Neither its objective was to decompose the various sectors’ GHG emissions, including the tourism sector. The purpose of this research was to test the impact of GDP (linear and squared terms), along with tourism receipts and renewable energy, on total CO2 emissions (not the sectoral one). However, the expert reviewer has raised a useful point that would be helpful for future research. Therefore, we have addressed this point at the end of the conclusion section to provide future research guidelines.
4. The CO2 emissions variable is used in the per capita form. As stated in the last point, considering the calculation of tourism sector-based emissions (CO2 or GHG) is totally different research, not in the present work scope. It thus can be conducted by the future studies. The authors highlight this point as the future research direction. Please see this modification at the end of the conclusion part of the manuscript.
5. At this point, the expert reviewer has not mentioned the further points causing non-clarity. The authors are ready to respond to any other queries and concerns raised by the expert reviewer. The authors thank you again for suggesting some new research directions for the future works.

In the end, the authors have attempted to satisfy the expert reviewer’s queries and concerns. The authors hope that the concerns raised by the expert reviewers were aptly satisfied. However, if there is still any confusion, the authors would like to clarify them at any peer-review stage positively.

Reviewer 3 Report

xc+vvvvvvvvvvvvComments and Suggestions for Authors
The article aims to examine the validity of the EKC hypothesis for the G7 countries. For this, a methodology is proposed that provides solid results to the study and contributes to the pre-existing literature.
It is recommended to review formatting issues according to the standards provided by the journal.
In-text citations must be numbered in order of appearance. In addition, the list of bibliographic references must appear with the references numbered and in order of appearance in the text, as indicated in the rules for authors of the journal.
In research documents, the first person should not be used but the third person, so it is recommended to review this aspect in the text (lines 7, 10, 11, 12…).
The spaces between paragraphs must be eliminated and the line spacing must be adjusted so that it is homogeneous throughout the text (lines 116, 119, 120…).
Attention should also be paid to the formatting indications of mathematical equations and their numbering.
A regular format must be applied in all tables, since in tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 the source at the bottom of the table is missing. The spacing between tables and text must also be corrected, according to the format established in the template provided by the journal.
The bibliography format should be carefully reviewed and it should be corrected according to the standards provided by the journal:
- References must be numbered according to their appearance in the text (line 289 and following).
- Authors must be separated by a semicolon (;) (line 290 and following).
- In the references corresponding to the articles, the title of the article does not go between quotation marks.
- In the references corresponding to the articles, the year does not appear in parentheses after the authors but in bold after the abbreviated name of the journal. In the books, the year follows the country.
- In article references, the volume of the journal is in italics.
- There are excess spaces between references (lines 315, 317, 357, 360, 375, 378, 399, 402).

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewers for his/her very valuable, careful and constructive comments about our manuscript. These are our answers to the comments of the reviewers. Changes and corrections were shown (Track Changes) in the revised manuscript.

 

REVIEWER 3

 

 

 

 

Comments of Reviewer 3:

 

The article aims to examine the validity of the EKC hypothesis for the G7 countries. For this, a methodology is proposed that provides solid results to the study and contributes to the pre-existing literature. √

It is recommended to review formatting issues according to the standards provided by the journal.
In-text citations must be numbered in order of appearance. In addition, the list of bibliographic references must appear with the references numbered and in order of appearance in the text, as indicated in the rules for authors of the journal. √

In research documents, the first person should not be used but the third person, so it is recommended to review this aspect in the text (lines 7, 10, 11, 12…). √

The spaces between paragraphs must be eliminated and the line spacing must be adjusted so that it is homogeneous throughout the text (lines 116, 119, 120…). √

Attention should also be paid to the formatting indications of mathematical equations and their numbering. √
A regular format must be applied in all tables, since in tables 2, 3, 4 and 5 the source at the bottom of the table is missing. The spacing between tables and text must also be corrected, according to the format established in the template provided by the journal. √

The bibliography format should be carefully reviewed and it should be corrected according to the standards provided by the journal:

- References must be numbered according to their appearance in the text (line 289 and following). √

- Authors must be separated by a semicolon (;) (line 290 and following). √

- In the references corresponding to the articles, the title of the article does not go between quotation marks. √
- In the references corresponding to the articles, the year does not appear in parentheses after the authors but in bold after the abbreviated name of the journal. In the books, the year follows the country. √

- In article references, the volume of the journal is in italics. √

- There are excess spaces between references (lines 315, 317, 357, 360, 375, 378, 399, 402). √

 

Answers for Reviewer 3

 

Our reviewer is so right. We corrected the format from our revised manuscript.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have corrected manuscript based on my comments. The answer there also provided. The manuscript has been improved. I do no have anything against of publishing this paper in current version.

Author Response

Answers to the Editor

 

 

Editor

 

Comments of Editor:

 

Dear Authors,

This manuscript needs to include some points and to response to all comments of Editor before to consider for publication:
Comments:
1- Update the period as we are at the end of 2020, so you can go until 2017 or 2018;
2- Need to pay attention to the language (take care to the english form because I see many poorly written sentences)
3- The reference at the bottom of Table 1  "World Bank, 2020" needs to be in number and also market in [ ]; and check the other references;
4- Let show a several results with attractive interpretation, and make policy implications hard and significant (this form needs to be improved);
5- This paper missed to include references that studied the same used model like (Farhani, S., Chaibi, A., Rault, C., 2014. CO2 emissions, output, energy consumption, and trade in Tunisia. Economic Modelling, 38(C), 426-434) and needs also to demonstrate why authors did not include other variables like the case of the paper (Farhani, S., Ozturk, I., 2015. Causal relationship between CO2 emissions, real GDP, energy consumption, financial development, trade openness and urbanization in Tunisia. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 22(20), 15663-15676).

 

Answers for Editor

 

 

We thank you for your thoughtful suggestions and insights; the manuscript has benefited from these insightful suggestions. We have rechecked the manuscript and made the necessary changes in accordance with your suggestions (the revised portions have been marked in red font in the revised manuscript). Our responses to your comments are given below.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

 

1. Thank you for noting this critical point but we used the longest available time-series data. (Please see data file in the attachment)

 

2. We thank you for this valuable comment. The manuscript was edited. Changes and corrections were shown (Track Changes) in the revised manuscript. Thanks again for the reminder.

 

3. Thank you for your insightful comments. We marked and added the reference to our revised manuscript.

 

4. We thank you for this valuable comment. We have addressed this point at the paper. Changes and corrections were shown (Track Changes) in the revised manuscript

 

5. We thank you for suggesting these valuable references. The information provided in these references has improved our understanding of the formation of EKC. We have now cited these references at relevant places in the manuscript. we have addressed this point at the end of the conclusion section to provide future research guidelines.

 

In addition, the purpose of this research is to investigate the validity of the EKC relationship (which is, inverted U-shaped GDP-CO2 relationship), including the tourism receipts and renewable energy consumption as the additional explanatory variables. Because of the inclusion of tourism receipts in the model, the authors named this EKC version as the tourism-induced EKC. In econometric modeling, the dependent variables are sensitive to the inclusion or exclusion of explanatory variables. Given this, the authors were interested in whether the GDP-CO2 relationship establishes an EKC (inverted U) or not. In this regard, this research's purpose was not focused on the direct impacts of tourism development on CO2 or GHG emissions. That is why the tourism sector emissions are not taken into account, which is beyond this research's scope. To reiterate, this is an impact analysis study to empirically test the contributions of the main variable of GDP, along with tourism receipts and renewable energy consumption, on CO2 emissions.

 

The authors are ready to respond to any other queries and concerns raised by the editor. The authors thank you again for suggesting some new research directions for the future works.