The Nexus between Digital Finance and High-Quality Development of SMEs: Evidence from China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The opening sentence of the abstract is too long and hard to follow.

What “with fixed industry and time”? Do you mean after controlling for industry and year effects?

“. The results of heterogeneity test in this paper are as follows” – no need for this sentence in the abstract.

Introduction must be rewritten. Please start with the motivation, proceed with aims, contribution, main findings, and presentation of the structure of the paper. Currently, almost all those keys points are missing.

Dong et al.[6] believes – believe, please check.

“Digital Finance and High-quality SMEs “- what is high-quality SMEs and what is Digital Finance and High-quality SME growth?

Hypothesis development has no citations.

H2 is long and not easy to follow.

I couldn’t understand the mediating model. Where is the mediating effect?

I don’t understand the dependent variable. There is no citation. Who did the index? Is it robust? Is it used in the previous studies? Do you construct or do you use a previously developed index? Section 3.2.1. is totally unclear. How the weights are assigned?

Control variables section is too short, we need to see the related citations to the variables.

In the methodology, there is no information about the estimation.

Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix is missing.

Please don’t present a regression with only one column.

Which industries dummies are used? We need to see the table of industries.

Tables are not self explanatory.

 

The reference format is unusual, for example reference 27 starts with L,B.;Z,J.H?

The paper has a potential but needs a better organization. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

At first, we appreciate your valuable comments and suggestions which help us improve the paper significantly. Then, in the response to comments, the revised is in red and the corresponding number of lines is highlighted. Thank you again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, the idea of the research focused on the nexus between digital finance and the high-quality development of SMEs is quite interesting and up-to-date.

Introduction

The introduction is quite comprehensive in the terms of the necessity of digital finance in SMEs. But in my opinion, the aim of the study is not clearly stated in the introduction part, as well as in the abstract. The introductory part continues smoothly in the literature research, which is focused mainly on the development of SMEs and digital finance.

Hypotheses

The stated hypotheses should be defined on the basis of the previous strong knowledge of the authors and they should be supported by a theoretical framework. The authors could support their knowledge, which leads to the statement of the hypothesis, with relevant references.

Conclusion and discussion

The discussion part is missing. In this part, the authors should allow their theoretical depth to guide them to discuss the results and comparing them with the results of other researchers. The conclusion part should also contain the limitation of the research.

Other comments:

The formal structure of the papers – Some parts of the theoretical research (for example lines 73-83) should be written as sentences, not only as definitions of the various authors which are in one sentence separated by semicolons. The references should be adjusted according to APA style.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you for your comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We found these comments very valuable and helpful in the revision and improvement of our paper. Then, in the respone to comments, the revised is in red and the corresponding number of lines is highlighted. Thank you again.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors made a good effort in terms of considering my comments.

Please find below some minor points to be fixed:

- There is a typo in table 4, Szie should be size

- findings of the above study - please cite with surname and year as we are not aware of the above study.

- Please add the note for significance levels for Table 7.

 

Author Response

Deat reviewer:

We would like to express our thanks to you. We have made the modification as required.  The changes have been highlighted in red. Thank you again!

Best wishes!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors, thank you very much for considering my suggestions.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your important suggestions. Because of these comments our manuscript can become reasonable. Thank you again!

Best wishes!