The Environmental Effect of Industrial Transfer in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Region

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

your work represents a valuable contribution to the field of environmental management.

To make it even more important, please:

1. define abbreviations at first occurrence,
2. reference the quantitative claims given in the introduction,
3. explain pollution halo theory, plus references,
4. explain the industrial transfer index in more detail way,
5. explain GNS (line 138),
6. expand the conclusion section with quantitative statements that certainly stem from your research

Kind regards

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your hard work and valuable comments. Your comments have greatly improved the quality of this article. Since the reply letter contains formulas, special characters and other contents, it is not convenient to display it here. Please see the attachment for the detailed reply content.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Researchers,

Paper is good but requires extensive and careful revision before evaluation for publish. 

Address the comments below. 

1. Spatial model is used. However, not mentioned in abstract.

2.The findings are also "spatial", i.e. regional effects ,direct and indirect effects are also evaluated. The writing in the abstract fails to reflect this effectively.

3. In the introduction and following sections, check the citing and reference method. Do not state references as SURNAME (YEAR). A reference such as [number] or "Surname et. al discussed that...[number] form is adequate.

4. Theoretical form of the econometric method is presented at eq. 1. The model estimated afterwards is not. In fact, the model necessitates a "curve" therefore a nonlinear model to be presented. It is seen after 4 pages that you used a GDP square variable. It should be before this. I suggest increasing no. of equations having variables you used in them as denotations.

5. What is the source that used the ITI calculation method? No references are presented for Eq. 3. Revise.

6. Data sources are not fully present. Example: which agency published City Statistical Books? It should be stated. 

7. Why no unit root tests are conducted? Is the method prone to non-stationary data use? How? If necessary, (I believe so), you should add these test results. Further, since a panel method is used, cross-sectional dependence tests could also be reported. (this final one is optional if the spatial regression method you use is not consistent. However, I suggest doing the test and reporting that the method has no consistency against the CD you found (if you find CD in data. You should report it as a deficiency and make future suggestions for future studies.

8. Policy suggestions should be extended. As it is in the conclusion, it is not enough. 

9. Various studies also introduced interesting methods to capture EKC. Include them as references: 

Estimating Long-Run Relationship between Renewable Energy Use and CO2 Emissions: A Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) Approach

The nonlinear relationship of environmental degradation and income for the 1870-2011 period in selected developed countries: the dynamic panel-STAR approach

Markov-switching vector autoregressive neural networks and sensitivity analysis of environment, economic growth and petrol prices

Asymmetry in the environmental pollution, economic development and petrol price relationship: MRS-VAR and nonlinear causality analyses

 

Additional minor corrections:

 

10. English in the intro section can be checked and revised for Grammar.

11.  First couple of paragraphs are not deductive. They can be seperated to two different paragraphs. The topic changes in the paragraph.  

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your hard work and valuable comments. Your comments have greatly improved the quality of this article. Since the reply letter contains formulas, special characters，figures and other contents, it is not convenient to display it here. Please see the attachment for the detailed reply content.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

 

The authors aim to discuss the ecological effect of industrial transfer and divide the total impact of the Environmental Kuznets Curve on industrial transfer into direct effect and indirect effect. The paper, therefore, “Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should gradually transfer pollution-intensive industries”.  It is hoped that the paper will provide theoretical support and countermeasures for the collaborative, green development of the targeted region.

 

However, I would suggest rejecting the paper for the following reasons:

 

1.       Abstract: the abstract needs revisions

The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.

I would suggest the authros to change the style of differentiate the contributuion of first author and second author.

2.       Research questions and originality.

Please articulate Research questions and originality further, clarifying how your article adds new knowledge to the body of knowledge that already exists in a research area.

3.       Methodology

The authors need to offer a concrete research framework. A diagram might be helpful.

4.       Discussion

This section should focus on explaining and evaluating what the authors have found, demonstrating how it relates to your literature review and research questions. You may also make an argument in support of your overall arguments.

5.       Conclusion

The authors need to improve the conclusion substantially. The conclusion of the article should be clear and concise and try to address the question and explain how you have met the research objective raised in the introduction.

6.       Suggestions

 

This section seems a bit isolated from previous chapters. It is important for the author to use the arguments in the previous Chapter to make their suggestions more convincing and valuable. They may want to cross-reference certain Sections from previous chapters. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your hard work and valuable comments. Your constructive comments and suggestions which would help us both in English and in depth to improve the quality of the paper.  Since the reply letter contains figures and other contents, it is not convenient to display it here. Please see the attachment for the detailed reply content.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

In the second round, the authors went through the comments but though some are attended carefully, certain points made continue to stand out. 

1. The referencing style problems persist within the text. Surname (YEAR) type referencing still exists. Revision still needed.

Furthermore, the newly added references to the reference section have wrong name or surnames written. Careful corrections needed. 

2. Problems with the equations persist for the econometric models in equations. It is hard to distinguish between variables and parameters if authors continue not to write time, individual and spatial indices (subscripts) in equations. 

3. Other than the above-stated issues which are minor, major major problem continues though authors made corrections. The empirical section needs careful attention. Unit root tests and cross sectional dependence tests are asked from the authors. Unit root tests are added but though many tests are added, these are not prune to cross sectional dependence.

Other than this, in the last round, cross-sectional dependence (CD) tests were asked. Not done by the authors. 

4. The unit root tests are added as if they are for robustness. They are not. They are a necessity before estimating regressions. Not after doing the regression analysis. CD and UR tests are prerequisite to further analyses. They need to be just after the descriptive statistics since they are about the distribution of the variables. In addition to the CD tests, extend the UR tests to Maddala-Wu and Pesaran CADF unit root tests. These tests are assumed as being consistent to CD.

5. Additionally, homogeneity tests should be added as they are commonly applied now.  

6. Repeating this again: if tests will favor CD in data and in addition, if UR tests suggest nonstationarity of data, authors are expected to redo the regression estimations. Not done yet. Overall, it is not convincing to find that variables such as GDP are stationary in levels. All these suggestions were previously made but not attended. 

The corrections are not fully done and the major issues are striking. I regret to suggest a second round for this paper with hopes that corrections will be made. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your hard work and valuable comments. Your comments have greatly improved the quality of this article. Since the reply letter contains formulas, special characters，figures and other contents, it is not convenient to display it here. Please see the attachment for the detailed reply content.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding our submission. We would be glad to respond to any further questions and comments that you may have.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have addressed my concerns and responded to my concerns. I am happy for the aritcle to be poublished in its current form.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Many thanks to the reviewers for their hard work and recognition of our work.

With the best wishes.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, 

I observe that the critiques are carefully adressed and I am happy to see this final version. My decision is positive regardings the publishing of the paper in the present form. 

One last note is,

There are minor spacing problems between lines in couple places. Check line spacing during final editing is done.