Cumulative Effect, Targeted Poverty Alleviation, and Firm Value: Evidence from China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

“Product Competitiveness, Earning Persistence and Firm Value: Evidence from China”

 

The authors analyze the structure of annual earnings of Chinese companies in the period 2004 – 2012 and assess in how far those allow to predict yearly company values in the period 2012-2019.  As their statistical results suggest, companies’ accumulated net earnings allow to well assess the long term stability of company value.  

 

Comments:

1)    The issue analyzed by the authors seems to be tackle a fundamental and quite standard question relevant in the fields of finance and accounting as I would guess. The authors extensively report what other scientific articles have analyzed in a similar context (see pages 2 and 3). Unfortunately the authors do not explicitly state what is indeed a novel contribution obtained by their analysis. Are they the first ones to analyze their dataset to tackle this question? Are they the first ones to identify a specific pattern / rule which allows them to nicely predict company values? … Are they doing ….. ?

 

2)    The fundamental question addressed by the authors clearly results to be one of central importance in the classical finance and accounting literature. I.e. how to well predict company value in the future. Indeed, basically all cited references come from this strand of the scientific literature. In my view, if the authors can indeed properly address my comment 1 above the analysis conducted by the authors should be of interest for the readership of those journals. It is highly difficult for me, to figure out, however, how the presents work could fit for the purpose of the journal “sustainability”, which is thought to “provide an advanced forum for studies related to sustainability and sustainable development” (from the scope of the journal).   Currently the authors in section 2.1. seem to mainly relate to the properties which can be derived from persistent yearly earnings observed for companies which apparently seem to be an important driver of future firm value. However, persistence of earnings and stability of company value in my view is not at all closely related to the concepts of  “cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings” as addressed by the journal sustainability.

Minor Comment: Both in the abstract and in the data-section the specific years for the data analyzed is somewhat unclear. Are earnings from the period 2004 – 2012 indeed used to predict yearly company values in the period 2012-2019?  

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The topic of the paper is interesting as well as the potential academic contribution of the work. However the Authors should improve their research according to the following indications.

1. It should be discussed how the results can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and working hypotheses (defined by literature review).

2. Implications, limitations of the study and future research directions should be addressed.

3. Tables should report the sources.

4. An extensive editing of English language and style is required.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I want to thank the authors for their efforts. The topic is exciting and well written. However, I invite authors to improve their manuscripts by considering the following points;

·         My first and most critical concern is that the manuscript is poorly related to the aim and scope of the Sustainability journal. You have to establish it in the manuscript. Currently, I am not able to identify any SOLID link.

·         The second most critical issue in the document is that it is very poorly cited. The article is full of different claims without any reference. For instance, start reading the introduction section—dozens of claims and statements without reference. Moreover, the literature is too old. I don’t see any study from 2022. Only one study from 2021 and three to four from 2020. 95% of the literature is too old. In the research article, this practice is not appreciated. In scientific studies, researchers’ focus should be on recent articles. Thus, I strongly suggest authors thoroughly revise this document and go through recent studies. I believe that 80% of studies should be from 2020 to 2022.

·         The introduction section is super long. Cut it into a maximum of one page.

·         What is the theoretical foundation of the study? You need to support and link your arguments with a theory. Currently, I don’t see any theoretical support for this work.

·         The article is poorly structured. There is no literature review section at all.

·         The result section is just fine.

·         The discussion section is too short. How does your result relate to or contradict previous studies? How does your result are benefiting the literature, industrialists, and other stakeholders? What do these findings mean? You need to clearly highlight it.

·         What are the theoretical and practical implications of the study? How does this study benefit the reader, market, investors, government, and other stakeholders? Highlight the limitations and future recommendations.

 

·         Please proofread the document. There are multiple grammatical and punctuation errors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I do not think that my comments are properly adressed.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Improved.

Author Response

Thank you so much for your approval! We added the description of the novel contribution of Ref[2]. And it gives the main content of this paper. We revised the unclear expressions in the hypotheses to make the study of the TPA companies’ value more closely relevant to the purpose of the journal “sustainability”. And we inserted some explanation to analyse the result and to get the conclusion. We also replaced some irrelevant reference.

Reviewer 3 Report

Ok

Author Response

Thank you so much for your approval! We added the description of the novel contribution of Ref[2]. And it gives the main content of this paper. We revised the unclear expressions in the hypotheses to make the study of the TPA companies’ value more closely relevant to the purpose of the journal “sustainability”. And we inserted some explanation to analyse the result and to get the conclusion. We also replaced some irrelevant reference.