Land Endowment and Parental Educational Investment in Rural China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Some specific questions and comments:

Line 16: Very briefly indicate why just the data from this province. Are there surveys in more recent years?

Lines 21-22: I think that's a very strong statement. It would be better to contextualize it to the Chinese case and/or the case of developing countries with large agricultural areas

Line 114: why is Farming with a capital letter? It’s the same at line 121 (For simplification…)

Lines 182-184: Why was this dataset used? It must be explained

Line 184: If possible, I think it might be adequate to use a map (China is a vast country!)

Lines 184-189: in other Chinese provinces do not experience the same conditions as Jiangxi Province

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Point 1: Line 16: Very briefly indicate why just the data from this province. Are there surveys in more recent years?

Response 1: As suggested, one sentence has been added (see lines 16-17).

Point 2: Lines 21-22: I think that's a very strong statement. It would be better to contextualize it to the Chinese case and/or the case of developing countries with large agricultural areas

Response 2: As suggested, we have revised the sentences (see line 22)

Point 3: Line 114: why is Farming with a capital letter? It’s the same at line 121 (For simplification…)

Response 3: Sorry, these are typos and have been corrected.

Point 4: Lines 182-184: Why was this dataset used? It must be explained

Response 4: We have added several sentences below to explain (see lines 198-208).  

“The Jiangxi province in China was selected as the study area for two reasons. First, Jiangxi province, located in Central China (Fig.1), is a major grain producing province with low per capita area of cultivated land because nearly half of its total population (45 million) are rural residents [13]. Land transferring is important in promoting the cultivated land large scale operation in the province. Second, Jiangxi Province is a large agricultural province with relatively low economic development, which has limited the investment level of education and human capital accumulation in the province. Insufficient investment in rural family education and over reliance on government financial appropriations are the typical characteristics of Jiangxi’s education investment. Therefore, it is relevant and essential to study the investment in education in Jiangxi province.”

Point 5: Line 184: If possible, I think it might be adequate to use a map (China is a vast country!)

Response 5: As suggested, a map has been added (see Fig. 1).

Point 6: Lines 184-189: in other Chinese provinces do not experience the same conditions as Jiangxi Province

Response 6: For other provinces that don’t have the similar situation as Jiangxi, the modelling approach is still useful. Jiangxi provides an ideal case of application and the findings have many important policy implications for itself and alike.    

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript „Land Endowment and Parental Educational Investment in Rural China” is studies the income and wealth effects of land endowment on household educational investment and investigates which effect is dominant. 

The authors are kindly required to consider the following:

• A section on Methods and materials, presenting the selected methods and applications
• a section, Discussions, that comprise comparisons between the methods and other similar published studies
• references: this should be uniformly written, and have the DOI.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Point 1: A section on Methods and materials, presenting the selected methods and applications

Response 1: Section of Materials and Methods has been created (see line 110)

Point 2: a section, Discussions, that comprise comparisons between the methods and other similar published studies

Response 2: Discussion section has been created (see line 471)

Point 3: references: this should be uniformly written, and have the DOI.

Response 3: We have revised references and added DOI.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors considered the suggestions of the reviewer and addressed them in the revised manuscript.