Exploring the Fiscal Responsibility through Active Citizenship for Governance Quality

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Congratulations for the paper. It concerns a very actual and current topic. Research hypotheses were clearly stated and the results were correlated with them. The methodology was determined accurately. The Authors wrote about the research's limitations. The language is very clear and readable. Literature review is adequate to the subject. The novelty of research is clearly presented. I only suggest to write about implications (both for theorists and practitioners). I don't have any other suggestions. 

Author Response

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on our paper, offered by You. We have taken into consideration your suggestion and we wrote about implications (both for theorists and practitioners). Accordingly, we have made changes in the paper, improving the paper with implications, both for theorists and practitioners. We take this opportunity to thank You and to express our sincere gratitude for Your review.

Indeed, we highly appreciate your contribution to this study with all your constructive comments.

 

Best regards,

 

Elena Cigu, 

Ana-Maria Bercu, 

Mihaela Tofan,

Silviu Mihail Tiță

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The discussion of active citizenship builds the strongest part of the paper. However, the paper fails in several technical issues, namely:

Fundamental:

1. Missing research question
2. Missing goal of the paper
3. Contribution,  not supported with empirical evidence and detached from the unspelled research gap and undeveloped hypothesis

Technical:

1. missing variables bias not tested and not controlled,
2. endogeneity test - it is not sure if the fiscal responsibility is a consequence of the active citizenship or reversal casualty exist
3. you are using panel data for the countries over 2006-2019 thus you did not control the heterogeneity across the countries and years
4. should be panel data not controlled variation across the countries,

     5 no fixed effects of the years, no fixed effects of countries

6. lack of Hausman test
7. Tabel 4, t-value of what? not readable table
8. Missing tests for normality of the error term
9. Missing robustness tests
10. Missing literature gap test
11. Weak paper motivation

The paper needs further development.

Author Response

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on our paper. Below we reply to your specific comments in the referee report. For your convenience, we replicate your comments in the report first (in black) followed by our reply (in red). In the revised version of the paper, our changes are found in red.

Indeed, we highly appreciate your contribution to this study with all your constructive comments.

 

Best regards,

 

Elena Cigu

Ana-Maria Bercu,

Mihaela Tofan

Silviu Tiță

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Propose the research hypotheses.

Literature review for hypothese is necessary.

Describe the sources of the data more.

Elaborate the form of.variables and measurement.

Elaborate econometric method for daya analysis.

Present theoretical contribution more.

Present policy implication more.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on our paper. Below we reply to your specific comments in the referee report. For your convenience, we replicate your comments in the report first (in black) followed by our reply (in red). In the revised version of the paper, our changes are found in red.

Indeed, we highly appreciate your contribution to this study with all your constructive comments.

 

Best regards,

 

Elena Cigu

Ana-Maria Bercu,

Mihaela Tofan

Silviu Tiță

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised version is better; however, several issues are still outstanding.

 

1. endogeneity test - it is not sure if the fiscal responsibility is a consequence of the active citizenship or reversal casualty exist
2. Missing time effects controls
3. Tabel 4, t-value of what? not a readable table – it is not clear to what does the t-test relate.
4. Missing robustness tests and missing literature gap tests

Missing completeness of the literature test and research gap development

consider citation count regression e.g. (Staszkiewicz et al., 2020) at robustness section or network analysis.

5. Weak paper motivation

I would suggest basing your motivation on more robust literature e.g.:

(Bassel et al., 2021; Kearns, 1995; Weger & Herbig, 2021; Zaff et al., 2010)

 

Missing development of controls for the (1) relation consider already proposed factors.

 

(1) notation of equation is rather strange if you refer to the fixed panel see e.g. (Greene, 2012)

Ref:

Bassel, L., Monforte, P., & Khan, K. (2021). Becoming an active citizen: The UK Citizenship Test. Ethnicities, 21(2), 311–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796820966360

Greene, W. W. H. . (2012). Econometric analysis 7th Ed. In Prentice Hall.

Kearns, A. (1995). Active citizenship and local governance: political and geographical dimensions. Political Geography, 14(2), 155–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/0962-6298(95)91662-N

Staszkiewicz, P., Morawska, S., Banasik, P., Witkowski, B., & Staszkiewicz, R. (2020). Do Judges’ Delegations Affect Judicial Performance? A Transition Economy Evidence. Justice System Journal, 41(4), 344–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/0098261X.2020.1843092

Weger, U., & Herbig, K. (2021). Active Contemporary Citizenship as a Research Mode. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 002216782110505. https://doi.org/10.1177/00221678211050518

Zaff, J., Boyd, M., Li, Y., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2010). Active and Engaged Citizenship: Multi-group and Longitudinal Factorial Analysis of an Integrated Construct of Civic Engagement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(7), 736–750. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-010-9541-6

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on our paper. Below we reply to your specific comments in the referee report. For your convenience, we replicate your comments in the report first (in black) followed by our reply (in green). In the revised version of the paper, our changes are found in green.

Indeed, we highly appreciate your contribution to this study with all your constructive comments.

 

Best regards,

 

Elena Cigu

Ana-Maria Bercu,

Mihaela Tofan

Silviu Tiță

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I am satisfied with the revision.

Please ensure English one more time.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

The authors gratefully acknowledge the constructive comments on our paper. Below we reply to your specific comments in the referee report. For your convenience, we replicate your comments in the report first (in black) followed by our reply (in green). In the revised version of the paper, our changes are found in green.

Indeed, we highly appreciate your contribution to this study with all your constructive comments.

 

Best regards,

 

Elena Cigu

Ana-Maria Bercu,

Mihaela Tofan

Silviu Tiță

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

No other issues, good luck.