How Does Environmental Regulation Affect the Development of China’s Pig Industry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I think the approach and paper are in general well-crafted and approachable to a broad readership. 

I, however, have a couple of comments the authors should tackle in a revision of the paper:

A) My ethical concern on the study: The authors discuss the development of China's pig industry and quality indicators solely from the standpoints of economic development on the one hand and climate-related factors such as carbon emissions. When discussing quality of an industry, particularly in the context of sustainability, we should factor in the well-being of the animals in particular. I did not understand you discussing this point at all in your paper. What's the point about discussing quality aspects in food industry if we don't care about quality of life of the animals? Even when you, for data availability or other reasons, do not include indexes that represent my point in your models, you should at least critically discuss this point in the introduction and discussion of your paper.

B) The paper needs professional english editing. There are many minor errors (for instance, feed vs. food) in the text but also a couple of bigger issues. For instance, I did not understand the sentence on Lines 75-77, starting with "On the other," at all.

C) From a formal perspective, the text is on a couple of instances, very sloppy. For instance: In Lines 102-111, you appear to simply have not deleted some of the author guidelines from the template. You should be much more careful when submitting a paper to a journal.

D) Line 250: I did not understand Hypothesis 4. Please elaborate in more detail.

E) Abbreviations and symbols should be defined at first mention in the text, afterward you can use the short forms throughout. You do not follow that principle on some instances. Read carefully through your text again an keep this in mind.

F) The formulae in your text look awkward. Write formulae in your text as formulae, not as text (E.g., something like 

X= (xij)m*n

is not acceptable. You can do this much better with the integrated formulae editor in word or in latex.

G) Again, the symbols and letters in your formula need to be defined at first, otherwise it is somewhat difficult to follow. What do P and Q stand for, for instance?

H) Formula (6): what are the control variables? Please present them at least in the text below the formula.

I) In Tables 5-7, I did not understand what the A(1) and A(2) stand for. Please explain.

Overall, I believe the paper has potential to be published but needs some revisions before being considered further.

As stated before. The paper needs professional english editing, the quality of english is not acceptable in the current version.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Many thanks for your insightful comments. I've adjusted accordingly based on suggestions.

The following are the answers and revisions I have made in response to the reviewers' questions and suggestions on an item-by-item basis.

1. Animal welfare as a part of the development of the aquaculture industry, I have rediscussed in the introduction, theoretical analysis, and description of pig quality indicators.
2. The paper has been revised by several people, including a third author who is a native English speaker. English expression was improved a little and it's my great honor to ask your help on the language aspect.
3. We have corrected the errors in the form.
4. Research hypothesis 4 mainly expresses that the effect of environmental regulation may be different in different regions. For your better understanding, I have reinterpreted this part.
5. The abbreviation of the article has been modified.
6. The formula that did not meet the requirements has been modified with the formula editor.
7. The letters in the paper formula have been defined.
8. The control variables of Formula 6 are explained in the paper.
9. AR (1) and AR (2) are used to test the difference autocorrelation of the perturbation term. Generally, the first-order difference of the perturbation term is allowed to have autocorrelation, that is, the p-value of AR (1) is less than 0.1, but the second-order difference of the perturbation term is not allowed to have autocorrelation, that is, the p-value of AR (2) should be greater than 0.1.

 At last, I want to thank you sincerely for your suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors.

Congratulations on the effort to develop the article, it can contribute to the scientific literature, but requires substantial improvements in its structure.

1 - What is the main question addressed by the research?

The article examines the effects of China's environmental regulations on the development of pig farming between the years 2005 and 2019.

2 - Do you consider the theme original or relevant in the area? Does it address a specific gap in the field?

The theme is original and relevant, as it deals with a real problem that exists in the agricultural, social, economic and environmental spheres of several countries.

3 - What does it add to the thematic area in relation to other published materials?

The study is relevant in relation to the others, as it performs a deeper analysis, for the analyzed period.

4 - What specific improvements should the authors consider in relation to the methodology? What other controls should be considered?

The theoretical basis needs improvement.

5 - Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented and do they address the main question posed?

Yes.

6 - Are the references adequate?

Yes.

7 - Please include any additional comments on the tables and figures.

Not applicable.

- - - -

I suggest some points for improvement:

The summary is insufficient, it needs to better highlight the results found.

Include in the introduction a larger discussion of China's environmental legislation;

The literature review seems adequate, but a few more current citations are in order;

In the research methodology, I suggest building a section explaining better the construction of the article from a practical point of view.

Highlight the statistical results against the existing literature on the subject, in order to make comparisons.

 

I hope I have contributed to the improvement of the study.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Many thanks for your insightful comments. I've adjusted accordingly based on suggestions.

The following are the answers and revisions I have made in response to the reviewers' questions and suggestions on an item-by-item basis.

1. The results found were more fully summarized.
2. China's environmental legislation is discussed in the introduction.
3. Some new applications have been added to the literature review.
4. The structure of the article is added to the recognition strategy.
5. The results are compared with existing literature.

At last, I want to thank you sincerely for your suggestions.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I still do not see a definition of the A(1) and A(2) as the parameters in the text. Please add a sentence below Table 5 for a better understanding from the readers' standpoint.

Apart from that, I recommend the paper for publication.

Congrats!

Author Response

Dear reviewer:
Many thanks for your insightful comments. I've adjusted accordingly based on suggestions.
We have added the explanations of a(1) and a(2) to the notes in Table 5.
At last, thank you for your recognition and suggestions on this article.