Evolutionary Game Analysis of the Regulatory Strategy of Third-Party Environmental Pollution Management

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this paper, Guolong WEI et al examined the evolutionary game analysis of the regulatory strategy of third-party environmental pollution management. This is a policy study with mathematical methods and modelling. This study is very interesting and will contribute to academia. I suggest this paper be published after several modifications. Below are my viewpoints:

 

Major points:

(1) This is an interesting model. I am not sure if this model fits different countries or specific countries. We understand that the same policy may perform totally differently between Germany and Somalia. If this model only fits a specific country, we hope the authors provide the related information. Furthermore, if the authors could suggest some money units (e.g., 100 Euro) for rewards may be helpful.

(2) The introduction part looks very long. If the authors could make the introduction concise and cohesive (e.g., reducing 25% of the words), it will help the readers.

(3) Based on the analysis, the authors assume that every people have clear ideas and look for best benefits. In the real cases, some people may have irrational behavior (e.g., some people just want to stop the pollution enterprises due to they don't like it). The authors may discuss this point (e.g., the possible difference between real cases and the modellings).

(4) The writing itself needs to be checked carefully.

 

Minor points:

(1) Authors' information. We don't know who is the corresponding author and the authors don't put the * in one people name.

(2) Page 2 Line 42: "...and the public, local government, and Central government tripartite game..." -> "...and the public, local government, and Central government tripartite game..."

(3) Page 3 Line 37 ": First" and Line 39 "; second" and Line 43 "; third" 

Page 15 Line 9 ": first" Line 12 "; second"

Please make the capitalization consistent, if possible. 

(4) The citations in Page 2 and Page 3 are different styles.

(5) Figure 1: Some words are capitalized. Some words are not capitalized. Please make it consistent if possible.

(6) Table 3. Equilibrium point ESS analysis. We cannot get the meaning of ESS. Please provide the full spelling.

(7) Figure 6 & Figure 7 & Figure 8 & Figure 9: the font size in the figure is too small.

Author Response

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Reviewer 2 Report

The authors present a very interesting paper that should be taken into consideration for publication in the Journal Sustainability, as it is a novel, well-founded research that raises issues relevant to business. The article deserves to be accepted with some minor corrections.

Minor Revisions

The abstract is well structured, clear and concise with the content of the publication.

The bibliography in the text is not in the journal format. 

In the introduction, the points (1), (2) and (3) should be separated as a list in the first paragraph.

In point 2, it would be useful to comment on the assumptions made for the construction of the model.

The equations should be numbered, they should all be separated from each other and it should be indicated to which term of the equation corresponds.

The quality of the figures is very poor and needs to be improved.

The implications of the work done should be added in the conclusions. Perhaps a section on Discussion and Implications of the results would be useful.

There are missing sections that have been deleted from the Template and the bibliography is not in the format

 

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

1.      Page 3: 2.1. Basic assumptions: “Pollution treatment enterprises have the motive of false pollution treatment in consideration of maximizing their own interests in environmental treatment”. This assumption maybe is not correct for some countries. Please explain your evidence for this assumption.

2.      Page 4: It is the same problem for following assumption that “professional environmental testing agencies have the intention of rent-seeking behavior under the constraints of government regulation and driven by interests”. Could you provide some examples or some literature to prove this assumption is correct?

3.      Page 5: “Government regulator is the implementer of the incentive and restraint mechanism”. What kind of incentive and restraint mechanism? It is necessary to explain in detail.

4.      Above basic assumptions are very important for following up hypothesis. If these basic assumptions are not correct or suitable, some buildup models applied in this paper maybe need to be modified or changed. So, please provide solid literature or examples to support your assumptions are acceptable.

5.      Page 6: 3. Model analysis: This is a good job to show evolutionary stability analysis and system equilibrium point stability analysis. It is great.

6.      Page 12: 4. Computational experimental simulation: The simulation start time is set to 0, the end time is set to 30, and the simulation unit is not specifically set. Why did you choose the end time setting to 30? If you shorten or extent the end time, maybe the simulation result is different.

7.      Page 13: 5. System optimization: How to decide the efficiency of system optimization?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx