Exploring the Asymmetrical Influence of Economic Growth, Oil Price, Consumer Price Index and Industrial Production on the Trade Deficit in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Re: Revisions to sustainability-1978443

 

Exploring the Asymmetrical Influence of Economic Growth, Oil Price, Consumer Price Index and Industrial Production on the Trade Deficit in China

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

We would like to commence by thanking the editor and the reviewer for their valuable time and constructive comments. Their expert field knowledge has helped us strengthen the manuscript significantly. According to the valued suggestions and comments provided by the editor and reviewer, we have revised our manuscript carefully. We endeavored to address all the comments, and our reflections are now given below point by point. Changes to the manuscript are shown in red color.

 Briefly, the following changes were made:

Sincerely,

The Authors

 

1. There are several studies in this field. The authors should clearly mention how this study differs from other published studies. That is, clearly mention the novelty of this study.

• Thank you for your valuable comment; we have mentioned the novelty of this study and how this study differs from other studies at the end of the introduction section.

 

2. The Introduction section should update providing a more accurate and informative literature review and the pros and cons of the available approaches and how the proposed method is different comparatively. Also, the motivation and contribution should be stated more clearly.

• The introduction section is revised carefully with the latest studies, methods are compared with other studies, and contribution is clearly mentioned according to your valuable comment.

 

3. Authors should update the literature section by citing the latest articles published in this area such as:

• Very thankful for your time and suggestions; as per the comment, we added more updated literature and cited the latest and most relevant articles in the literature section of the paper.

 

4. Some equations are in bold format; they should be consistent.

• As per suggestions, we amend the equations in the same format.

 

5. Discussion" section should be added in a more highlighting, argumentative way. The author should analyze the reason why the tested results are achieved.

• Thanks as per comment, the results and discussion section are separated and improved in an argumentative way, also justified with a test of how results are achieved in this paper discussion section.

 

6. Keywords should be organized in alphabetical order.

• As per value-able suggestions, we reorganized keywords.

 

We very much wish to acknowledge the reviewer for their feedback and insightful comments. We believe that as a result of this feedback, our manuscript has been considerably enhanced, and we hope it is now deemed suitable for publication.

Thank you once again for considering our manuscript.

Kindest regards,

Authors

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your interesting paper. I have several comments on it, which could lead to the improvement of the paper, its readability and suitability for publication in a scientific journal. 

- The paper's abstract should contain the parts: Research background, Purpose of the article, Methods, Findings & Value added. Please redesign your abstract according to these requirements. 

- In lines 96 - 99, you specified the research questions. Please, clarify why it is important to have the answers to these questions. Why is it important for the practice? What is the practical usability of your results? I. e., what is the purpose of your study?

- It is not necessary to repeat the scientific gap at the end of the Literature review section. This belongs to the Introduction section. 

- Please explain the variables used in equations 4 - 7. 

- I think the alternative hypothesis in line 305 is not correctly written. The alternative hypothesis says that at least one parameter differs from zero (not that all parameters have to be different from zero). 

 - Line 330: Please, explain why you consider only the correlation higher than 0.90 to be strong, meaning the collinearity between the variables? Is the correlation 0.774 or -0.608 not strong enough for you (statistically significant at 0.05 level)? It would be better to use VIF or collinearity diagnostic than only the correlations because it reveals only the collinearity, not the multicollinearity among the variable. 

- The paper misses the Discussion section. Please, compare your results with the results of already published studies. 

 

 

Author Response

Re: Revisions to sustainability-1978443

 

Exploring the Asymmetrical Influence of Economic Growth, Oil Price, Consumer Price Index and Industrial Production on the Trade Deficit in China

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

We would like to commence by thanking the editor and the reviewer for their valuable time and constructive comments. Their expert knowledge of the field has helped us to strengthen the manuscript significantly. According to the valued suggestions and comments provided by the editor and reviewer, we have revised our manuscript carefully. We endeavored to address all the comments and our reflections are now given below point by point. Changes to the manuscript are shown in red color.

 Briefly, the following changes were made:

Sincerely,

The Authors

 

1. The paper's abstract should contain the parts: Research background, Purpose of the article, Methods, Findings & Value added. Please redesign your abstract according to these requirements.

• Thank you for your valuable comment, we have revised the abstract now which includes the research background, the purpose of the study, methods and findings of the study.

2. In lines 96 - 99, you specified the research questions. Please, clarify why it is important to have the answers to these questions. Why is it important for the practice? What is the practical usability of your results? I. e., what is the purpose of your study?

• At the end of the introduction section, we have clearly mentioned why this study is important for practical use results and the purpose of the study.

3. It is not necessary to repeat the scientific gap at the end of the Literature review section. This belongs to the Introduction section. 

• As per your valuable suggestions, we have removed the scientific gap from the literature review and added it to the end of the introduction section.

4. Please explain the variables used in equations 4 - 7. 

• As per suggestions, we have explained equations 4-7 in the manuscript in lines 268 to 272 and 293 to 296.

5. I think the alternative hypothesis in line 305 is not correctly written. The alternative hypothesis says that at least one parameter differs from zero (not that all parameters have to be different from zero). 

• Thanks for your valuable time and comments, we have corrected the alternative hypothesis in lines 341 to 342. 

6. Line 330: Please, explain why you consider only the correlation higher than 0.90 to be strong, meaning the collinearity between the variables? Is the correlation 0.774 or -0.608 not strong enough for you (statistically significant at 0.05 level)? It would be better to use VIF or collinearity diagnostic than only the correlations because it reveals only the collinearity, not the multicollinearity among the variable. 

• As per value-able suggestions, we have applied the VIF test to check the multicollinearity in the data in table 11 annexure 1.

7. The paper misses the Discussion section. Please, compare your results with the results of already published studies. 

• As per your suggestions, we have added a discussion section in the manuscript, and the results are compared with previous related studies.

We very much wish to acknowledge the reviewer for their feedback and insightful comments. We believe that as a result of this feedback, our manuscript has been considerably enhanced, and hope it is now deemed suitable for publication.

Thank you once again for considering our manuscript.

Kindest regards,

Authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your reply. I still have two comments:

- the alternative hypothesis is still incorrectly written (lines 341-342), saying that all the parameters are equal (as in the null hypothesis), but the last one is different from zero, or all are different from zero? This is not correct. 

- You still state that the variables are associated with each other, but it is not a strong association (lines 364-365). I'm afraid I have to disagree with this statement. The correlations are high and, moreover, are statistically significant. How do you think the relatively strong relationship between CPI and OP or between IPI and GDP affects the resulting models when these variables are used in the model together? 

Thank you

Author Response

Re: Revisions to sustainability-1978443

Exploring the Asymmetrical Influence of Economic Growth, Oil Price, Consumer Price Index and Industrial Production on the Trade Deficit in China

Dear Editor and Reviewer,

We would like to commence by thanking the editor and the reviewer for their valuable time and constructive comments. Their expert knowledge of the field has helped us to strengthen the manuscript significantly. According to the valued suggestions and comments provided by the editor and reviewer, we have revised our manuscript carefully. We endeavored to address all the comments and our reflections are now given below point by point. Changes to the manuscript are shown in red color.

 Briefly, the following changes were made:

Sincerely,

The Authors

1. The alternative hypothesis is still incorrectly written (lines 341-342), saying that all the parameters are equal (as in the null hypothesis), but the last one is different from zero, or all are different from zero? This is not correct. 

• As per valuable suggestion hypotheses are correct. The hypothesis is not self-created by the author. It is developed under strong literary support. The hypothesis is written in theoretical and globally recognized statistical methods in a current study. In theoretical form, it is written by following Ahad and Anwer (2021)

                H₀: Symmetric (linear) long-run coefficients exist.

                H₁: Asymmetric (nonlinear) long-run coefficients exist.

 However, statistically, on the bases of these studies Ahad and Anwer (2020) and Phong et al. (2019), the hypothesis has been amended; generally, both studies mentioned above had statistically written the hypothesis

H_o: δ = θ⁺ = θ⁻ = λ⁺ = λ⁻ = π⁺ = π⁻ = 0

H_1: δ ≠ θ⁺ ≠ θ⁻ ≠ λ⁺ ≠ λ⁻ ≠ π⁺ ≠ π⁻ ≠ 0

2. You still state that the variables are associated with each other, but it is not a strong association (lines 364-365). I'm afraid I have to disagree with this statement. The correlations are high and, moreover, are statistically significant. How do you think the relatively strong relationship between CPI and OP or between IPI and GDP affects the resulting models when these variables are used in the model together? 

• In this section, the author believes a significant relationship exists between the explanatory variables, the dependent variable and all the explanatory variables with each other. Nevertheless, this relationship is not much stronger, meaning less than relaxed and strict threshold measures of 0.8 and 0.9 cause multicollinearity under Gujrati (2021) & Asteriou and Hall (2021) In a text, not being stronger does not mean a weak relationship, but it means all explanatory variables in the correlation matrix have a value of less than 0.8 & 0.9, indicating no multicollinearity issue among variables. However, it is also justified with VIF and Tolerance measures. In annexure I, under auxiliary regression, the value of VIF for each variable is less than the threshold measure of 10, and the tolerance measure is greater than the threshold measure of 0.10. It is also well described by both above-mentioned studies.

We very much wish to acknowledge the reviewer for their feedback and insightful comments. We believe that as a result of this feedback, our manuscript has been considerably enhanced, and hope it is now deemed suitable for publication.

Thank you once again for considering our manuscript.

Kindest regards,

Authors

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for your response. I agree with the publication of your article.