Research on Sustainability of Financing Mode and Demand of PPP Project—Based on Chinese PPP and Local Financing Platform Alternative Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
this paper tries to analyses the PPP requirements in different cities, but the paper is not rigorous. The description and logic of this paper is far from a research paper.
1. The abstract is not clear and have not mention the research questions and method.
2. The contribution of this paper summarized in “introduction” seems too weak for a research paper.
3. The data used in this paper is not explained clearly in section 3. And, it is confused that the using data and analysis seem based on prefecture-level, but the statistics in table 1 and table 2 are based on the provinces.
4. The research design is not solid. As there are so many factors may influence the PPP demands, the research design should consider to control these variables. Even some variables mentioned in table 3 and equation, they have not appeared in table 4 and 5. Besides, the variables in table 4 and 5 are not all explained.
5. The application and theoretical contribution of this paper are not described in “conclusions”
Author Response
The structure of the article has been improved. Such as improving the abstract; rewriting the introduction; adjusting the structure of the third part, adding research methods; redesigning the empirical part, and improving the tables and graphics. Make the article structure more reasonable, more standardized and clear expression.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The Boundary of Cooperation and the Forecast of PPP Project Demand
The research topic is related to the scope of the Sustainability journal but the Author did not demonstrate this directly.
Abstract
The abstract does not go into depth about what the paper seeks and lacks what theories, methods, and sources are applied. According to the Author, „the local government’s intervention in the economy has caused the land finance malpractice - pushing up housing prices without economic growth”. Theoretically and empirically, even in the absence of government intervention, home prices are determined not merely by economic growth (or business cycle) but by other supply-side and demand-side factors (e.g. interest payments, changes in demographics, etc.).
Introduction
1. This part should better justify the importance of the current research topic either for theory (e.g. New Institutional Economics) or for practice in other countries. Alternatively, it should indicate the gaps in theory or existing research and knowledge it aims to fulfill. Expanding studies of Chinese authors, presented probably in Chinese language journals [16-17] is a quite good contribution but not enough. Does Autor expect country-specific results or more general?
2. Author states that his paper “interprets the PPP model as an alternative to urban investment bonds and local financing platform models, and extends this alternative relationship to the neoclassical economic growth framework”. According to the neoclassical growth theory (e.g. Solow and Swan), economic growth is the result of three factors—labor, capital, and technology, while the Author’s focus is mainly on capital.
3. How does the Author understand the term “social capital”?
4. Section part covering 99-121 lines might be briefly presented in the tabular form with the addition of rates of change for variables.
Research background
5. A lot of information about China is used, but foreign readers cannot be well situated on what this information is about. One example is “the tax-sharing system reform” which deserves an explanation. Other examples and only examples, throughout the article, include “financial power”, “administrative power”, “land transfer fees”, “land transfer price”, amount of “land transaction”, “indemnificatory housing projects”, “efficiency of land finance financing”
6. Fiscal activity includes taxation, so why does the Author use the term “the fiscal and taxation reforms”?
7. Oliver Hart’s article, the Autor refers to, is about property rights theory and contract theory but not about “Cooperative Relations Theory”. Hart has developed a simple incomplete contracting model to analyze PPPs. He made “some general remarks about the relationship between the theoretical literature on privatization and incomplete contracting theories of the firm”. So, what are the assumptions of the theory that the Author of this manuscript calls “Cooperative Relations Theory”? Referring here directly to the section “Demand Forecast of PPP Project” what does “optimal government boundary theory” state? Please do not persuade your readers to read all the sources to which there is only a reference.
Data collation (?) and analysis
8. This section should be divided into two sections: Research Methodology (Data and methods) and Description of (PPP in) provinces. I missed information on the used methodology and justification for using it. The descriptive part requires rewriting - the text is very dense and difficult to understand (see, for instance, single sentence 239-244)
9. Sources should be described in more detail (what kind of datasets, how to access them?). What do such abbreviations as CEIC and CBRC mean?
10. Some information in this section is repeated.
Demand Forecast of PPP Project
11. Some information should come in the Methodological section
12. Table 3: What and how long period do the statistics refer to? Is GDP expressed in real terms, and if so, in prices from which year? Fiscal deficit and expenditure (billions of what?). Fixed asset investment (% of what?). Are all variables used in all equations described in Table 3?
13. 275-276 “Land is the most important factor of urban economic growth” Is there any evidence in the manuscript showing the domination of the land over labor and capital as a factor of economic growth in cities?
14. Tables should be readable by themselves. Table 4 and Table 5- what do columns (1)–(6) and (1)-(4) describe?
15. There is no one neoclassical model of economic growth. Which one is a base for the current study? Additionally, neoclassical models relate to short-run and long-run effects on economic growth. Which category is applied in the current study? What assumptions were taken when the models were built? Please consider: Ákos Dombi & István Dedák (2019) Public debt and economic growth: what do neoclassical growth models teach us?, Applied Economics, 51:29, 3104-3121, DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2018.1508869
16. All abbreviations of variables should be precisely explained under the equations.
References
17. The reference items are dominated by Chinese literature published in journals that are difficult to reach for non-Chinese-speaking readers. Please expand your literature review with items from other reputable international/foreign journals, not only the Sustainability journal.
18. #1-3; 16-17, etc. Titles of journals are usually written in capital letters
19. References do not follow a pattern, they are preferable to standardize (see the comparison
Hart O. Incomplete Contracts and Public Ownership: Remarks, and an Application to Public-Private Partnerships. Economic Journal 2003,113,69-76 versus Zhong Ninghua, Chen Shanshan, Ma Huixian, etc. Evolution of debt risk of local financing platforms - based on the measurement of 'implicit guarantee' expectations. China's industrial economy 2021,4,5-23
20. Statistical yearbooks are not listed in this section
Lines 18-20; 195-196: the tense forms are not correct, only selected examples, please check and correct all text
Line 41: game (convert upper case to lower case)
Line 95: Jiang shengsan
Lies: 95-97 grammar mistakes
Lines 125-127: about 70% plus about 10” gives about 80% not „about 75 percent”
Figure 1 should be firstly mentioned in the text in the section it appears. Figure 1's title is not appropriate. The same applies to the title of Table 1 (is a number of projects expressed in national currency units?) and Figure 2 and Figure (plus lack of measurement units). Honestly saying, I do not understand Figure 3 – what is the proportion of what?
Please decide whether to use the words „percent” or “per cent” or the percentage symbol (%) – e.g. 70 percent versus 9.19 per cent versus 100%
In general, the sense of sentences in the text is difficult to read due to incorrect English grammar, including syntax.
Author Response
The structure of the article has been improved. Such as improving the abstract; rewriting the introduction; adjusting the structure of the third part, adding research methods; redesigning the empirical part, and improving the tables and graphics. Make the article structure more reasonable, more standardized and clear expression.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The author presents a very interesting and well-structured research regarding the Boundary of Cooperation and the Forecast of PPP Project Demand in China. Nevertheless, in my opinion there are some points that need to be addressed in order to improve the overall quality of the document.
1- The abstract is extremely short. It should be redesigned in order to capture not only the major findings but also the localization of the research (China), the methodology used and a brief introduction of the ai of the research (address any particular problem, or provide further insights in a particular issue, etc), nut also to capture the reader´s curiosity and scientific plausibility. For example, the information regarding the prefecture cities in CBRC's should be mentioned (line 58).
2- There is no mention across the document of the particular contributions to the scope of the journal – Sustainability. For such respectable and reputable journal, I suggest the author add a subsection where the major contributions of this research aim to address one of the many scopes of the journal! I suggest the introduction of a sub-chapter in the introduction named for example: Major contributions of the research for [scope of the Sustainability]
3- In the introduction the first 2 paragraphs need at least one reference. The statements argue that the Chinese society needs new urbanization as important strategy for …. And so on. Where is this information coming from?
4- In line 41 what is the meaning of Game? Is an organization / institution / type of collaboration? Please clarify.
5- In the conclusions the managerial implications / contributions of the research are very well illustrated and super clear! However, the academic contributions (in terms of development of for example new financing models) lack. Please complete.
6- Finally, the author should check the journal standards in terms of referencing across the whole document. For example, instead of [18] [19] [20] [21] [22], the author can simple reference as follows: [18-22].
Good job!
Author Response
The structure of the article has been improved. Such as improving the abstract; rewriting the introduction; adjusting the structure of the third part, adding research methods; redesigning the empirical part, and improving the tables and graphics. Make the article structure more reasonable, more standardized and clear expression.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The subject of the article is interesting for research. It is in line with the aim and scope of the special issue: Public Projects, Public and Private Partnerships and Economic Sustainability Evaluation.
In general, the article has an acceptable structure, but some parts need improvement.
The abstract is too short (it must have a maximum of 200 words) and is not well structured. It should be reviewed and rewritten more explicitly. They should be introduced in the structure of the abstract: the background, the motivation, and the contribution to the literature.
The title and abstract do not refer to the particularity of the applicability of the study (the country for which the analysis is made).
The figures are too prominent. It would be preferable if they were made following the same style. Figure 3 has another title inside.
The recommendations for future research in Table 7 can be summarized in one sentence, and the Table moved to the Appendices. It would be interesting to see what the author's intentions are and less so those of other researchers.
Author Response
The structure of the article has been improved. Such as improving the abstract; rewriting the introduction; adjusting the structure of the third part, adding research methods; redesigning the empirical part, and improving the tables and graphics. Make the article structure more reasonable, more standardized and clear expression.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
I am satisfied with the updates.
Good job!
Reviewer 4 Report
The author has answered satisfactorily my comments and suggestions.
