Informal Environment Regulation, Green Technology Innovation and Air Pollution: Quasi-Natural Experiments from Prefectural Cities in China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper presents a study that articulates the impacts of informal environmental regulations and green technology innovations on air pollution. The study concluded that informal environmental regulations help to reduce the impact of air pollution by encouraging green technology innovation. This is a contribution to knowledge in this area of study as the impact of informal environmental regulations and their relationship and impacts on air pollution and green technology have been largely unexplored.
In my view the paper will be greatly improved if the authors could have access to an English grammar chck service. This will greatly allow the paper to be accessible to a wider audience. As presently written, there are limitations to this potentially.
Examples:
Lines 33 - 35: the sentence is unclear.
Line 58: "In an accompanying paper." I suppose the authors are refering to the current paper, thus using "In this paper" might be a more appropriate set of words.
Line 201: "This section may be divided by subheadings." This sentence is unneccesary, This should read, for example, "This section provides a descritption of the experimental results, their interpretation, ...."
There is a lack of the determiner "the" before many words, making some sentences less understandable than they could be.
The in text references don't appear on the submitted pdf file. They read as "0." See lines 30, 35, 38, 40, 42, for examples.
Author Response
Thank the reviewer for the professional advice. The author has made a point-to-point modification.
Please refer to the uploaded revised manuscript for detailed modifications.
Response to Reviewer 1 Comments
Point 1: Lines 33 - 35: the sentence is unclear.
Response 1: This sentence has been rewritten sufficiently, making it easier for the reader to understand.
Point 2: Line 58: "In an accompanying paper." I suppose the authors are refering to the current paper, thus using "In this paper" might be a more appropriate set of words.
Response 2: It has been revised according to this suggestion in the revised manuscript.
Point 3: Line 201: "This section may be divided by subheadings." This sentence is unneccesary, This should read, for example, "This section provides a descritption of the experimental results, their interpretation, ...."
Response 3: I quite appreciate the reviewer's considerate suggestions, and it has been revised accordingly.
Point 4: There is a lack of the determiner "the" before many words, making some sentences less understandable than they could be.
Response 4: Focusing on the determiner "the", the author has revised sentences of the whole manuscript to be more understandable. Please see the revised manuscript.
Point 5: The in text references don't appear on the submitted pdf file. They read as "0." See lines 30, 35, 38, 40, 42, for examples.
Response 5: This disturbance is mainly caused by the conversion between word and PDF file. The author has revised the citation of references. After converting to PDF file, the author ensures that the above disturbance no longer exists.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
please see the attachment
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Thank the reviewer for the professional advice. The author has made a point-to-point modification. Please refer to the uploaded revised manuscript for detailed modifications.
Response to Reviewer 2 Comments
Point 1: The abstract is good but still need improvement and included more specific information about how the informal environment regulation inhibits air pollution and green technology used.
Response 1: The author reconstructed the abstract and in detail added the inlfucing mechanism of the informal environment regulation to inhibit air pollution through green technology innovation.
Abstract: Facing informal environment regulation carried out by the environmental protection organizations, we study and judge its inhibitory effect on air pollution and acting path. Based on panel data of 285 cities from 1998 to 2018 in China, a time-varying difference in difference model is used to estimate effect of informal environment regulation on air pollution. The estimation results show that the informal environment regulation can inhibit air pollution significantly under dif-ferent scenarios. Green technology innovation is introduced into the research, and mediating effect model is used to investigate influencing mechanism. The informal environment regulation strengthens pressure on the pollutant emission. This forces enterprises to enhance the investment and application of the green technology innovation during production. Mechanism analysis shows that informal environment regulation inhibits air pollution by encouraging the application of the green technology innovation. The above conclusions are still valid after series of robustness tests such as parallel trend, placebo test and instrumental variables. The research conclusions provide empirical evidence for the construction of diversified air-pollution control system, and demon-strate the practical significance of the informal environment regulation to improve air quality.
Point 2: In the introduction section, the description of environmental protection, development of green technology and reduce pollutant emissions should be expanded and supported by more recent research about this study.
Response 2: The author adds the corresponding description in the introduction, and adds the latest references to support this study.
Point 3: In lines 35 and 36, please add references for this sentence “Many investigations have focused on environment regulation and environment pollution” for example “https://doi.org/10.37934/arfmts.88.1.5870”.
Response 3: According to the suggestions, the author added the corresponding references to support the relevant research contents.
Point 4: In section 3.1 (line 140), please define the PM2.5 to Particulate Matter. also I suggest to define the PM before you mention like two sentence and how PM2.5 emission is formed.
Response 4: In this section, the author defines inhalable particulate matter in detail, and further points out the reasons why the author uses this index to measure air pollution. At the same time, the author expounds in detail the two main sources of the formation of inhalable particles.
Fine particulate matters, also known as PM, mainly refer to particles with the diameter from 0.1 to 100 microns. Fine particulate matters last in the ambient air for a long time, which has a great impact on human health and atmospheric visibility especially for the particles with the diameter of 2.5 microns（PM2.5）. PM2.5 concentration per unit GDP is used as the proxy variable of air pollution in this paper. There are two main resources to form fine particulate matters. Firstly, ultrafine particles are directly discharged from various industrial processes, such as coal combustion, metallurgy, chemical industry and internal combustion engine. Secondly, fine particulate matters are from the secondary formation of ultrafine particles and aerosols in the atmosphere. In 1996, the Chinese government defined the concentration of fine particulate matters as an important monitoring indicator of air quality.
Point 5: In line 152, the authors should be explaining which the green technology innovation is.
Response 5: The author selects and classifies green invention patents, and lists the classification in detail in the article, based on green list of international patent classification issued by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
Green invention patents refer to the patents authorized for green technologies in solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy, tides, geothermal, biofuels, carbon capture and storage, hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles and other new energy.
Point 6: To define the parameters of equation 1 (in lines 181-189, I suggest to authors to make a table to define these parameters instead of paragraph.
Response 6: According to the suggestion of the reviewer, the author made Table 1 to illustrate the definitons of the parameters in Formula (1) clearly.
Point 7: The authors mentioned that “This finding is consistent with the conclusions of many other studies” please add the references of these studies.
Response 7: The author added the corresponding references in line 239 of the revised manuscript.
Point 8: In line 219, the authors should be defining the SO2 to Sulfur dioxide before this sentence.
Response 8: According to the suggestion of the reviewer, the author defines the SO2 to Sulfur dioxide in line 246 of the revised manuscript.
Point 9: In conclusion section, please rewrite this section and include the main conclusions you obtained from this study because it too long and not good for reader.
Response 9: The author rewrites the conclusion precisely and seperates it from the policy implicaion.
Increasing evidence suggests that regulatory organizations have become increasingly important responsibility subjects and acting units in protecting environment. The central findings are shown in the following aspects. Firstly, that coefficient of informal environment regulation on air pollution is significantly negative under different empirical scenarios. And the conclusion is established that the informal environment regulation does have the inhibitory effect on air pollution. Secondly, the estimated coefficients of the mediating variable and the dummy variable are significantly negative, and this further reveals that the green technology innovation has strengthened the inhibitory effect on air pollution for the informal environment regulation.
Point 10: The conclusion section, I suggest the authors to give an outlook on future research work at the end of conclusion section.
Response 10: The author talked about two aspects of research prospects, mainly including more cities coverage and the selection of potential intermediating variables.
The research prospects for the further discussion focus on the following aspects based on the above analysis. Firstly, the research needs to cover more cities in order to increase the applicability of the research results. At the same time, innovative methods such as spatial econometrics are applied to strengthen the heterogeneity research of dif-ferent industries and regions. Secondly, this paper systematically discusses the mediating role of the green technology innovation between informal environmental regulation and air pollution. In further research, other potential mediating variables will enter the research field, such as regulatory intensity, public appeal, regulatory coordination, etc., which will have a more practical and meaningful impact.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
