Augmented Gravity Model of Trade with Social Network Analysis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

It is a very good manuscript that addresses a topic of interest: Augmented Gravity Model of Trade with Social Network Analysis

The manuscript is well organized and provides clearly structured information. However, I would have some recommendations to be considered for publication:

1. The numbers in the keywords are not necessary.

 

2. I would like to see in the conclusion some guidelines for future studies.

 

3.In the methods section, it would be beneficial to provide further elaboration on the methodology employed for the panel data, particularly in terms of whether fixed effects or random effects were utilized.

 

 

Best regards

Author Response

Thank you very much, Reviewer. Please, attached are the responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review on paper ‘Augmented Gravity Model of Trade with Social Network Analysis’

The authors reveal statistically significant macroeconomic factors, dummy variables using gravity model that impact on exports performance of USA and UK. The data from 51 countries for 41 years is enough to achieve goal of the paper.

1. Introduction

Addition of digital transformation and social network add novelty of the economic research. Authors demonstrates importance of international trade. E.g., ‘number of people living in extreme poverty around the world has fallen by around one billion since 1990 due to the growth in international trade’. This statement will be more convincing using percent of people in extreme poverty, but not their absolute value.

Distance and common borders between the two countries are main factors of gravity model in the paper. Other factors include real effective exchange rate, trade openness, and similarity of GDPPC, reciprocity, in-degree, and out-degree.

2. Literature Review

Literature review includes outdated sources.

It is better to include surnames of authors instead of ‘In the literature’, ‘The’ etc. Authors prepared goof review of related works about gravity model and distance between countries. At the same time, authors considered transportation costs for physical goods, but do not considered analog of transportation costs (may be, transaction costs) for digital goods. Applying of transportation costs for GDP (which include digital goods and services) is not appropriate. What share of physical goods in GDP? How gravity model address digital products? This issue is important, but absent in literature review.

What does it mean 'network structure' for this paper? Countries with common borders or cultures? Authors do not explain it in the paper.

It is also unclear about difference between reciprocity and in-degree variable.

3. Materials and Methods

Authors clear identify augmented gravity model with social network analysis using multiple regression. In-degree and out-degree centrality authors explain without visualization, i.e. edges and nodes are not presented.

Authors formulate their theoretical expectations that help to compare both theoretical prediction and practical results. Coefficient of “distance” is also used only for physical goods here, but not for digital ones.

There are different measurements of import for reciprocity and IN_DEGREE. However, it is unclear units of measurements - percent for IN_DEGREE or number of links in country. There is ambiguous units of in-degree centrality, which is measured both number of links and percent.

Authors choose 0.05% of world trade (e.g. in-degree variable) as threshold, but do not explain about what 'good variation' means.

It also unclear about number of observation: 1586 with REER and without missing data and 2004 without REER. In second data set, do authors use data with missing values?

OUT-DEG variable is measured as number of links or absolute value of export ($)?

4. Results and Discussions

Authors considered scaled and scale-free social network measurements. Does it mean normalized values and actual values?

There is no TABLE 5A in the paper (page 8), may be 4A?

It is expected that coefficient estimate for LINDER to have a positive sign. Nevertheless, in table 4A authors write that positive coefficient LINDER has a wrong sign.

In two tables 4A and 4B, distance variable is statistically insignificant. The main reason can be that authors do not take into account digital products, but only physical ones.

10% significance level has no asterisk after Table 4a.

The authors prepared quality interpretation of estimated coefficients for all regressions.

5. Conclusion

The conclusions correspond to purpose of the paper.

Authors wrote that 'the third case combined the data and set both the USA and the UK', but table 4C contains only UK as reference country.

DISTANCE with proxy for transportation cost is not convincing metrics for digital products.

References

Only six references (2, 4, 7, 26, 30, 35) from 34 (18%) cover last 5 years. The rest of references considers papers references since 1963, 1966 etc.

The paper is an interesting research about model of international trade, but the paper needs to be revising taking into account comments above.

Author Response

Thank you, Reviewer. Attached is the Response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper draws attention to a very interesting research field and subject. Its relevance to the role of international trade makes it even more interesting. Yet, the paper requires major some changes as follows:

In the abstract session, I would suggest to better highlight the aim of this research together with its significance.

Research gap: In general, a good discussion is noted to present the need for this study. However, there is room to further underpin and support your arguments. Supporting the core arguments related to the research gap based on more recent literature is instrumental to convey the message further related to the core value of your study.

Considering the nascent field of “global trade”, the range of extant literature covered is apt and wide. I would welcome just a few more contemporary works, such as:

Strategic Sport Sponsorship Management - A Scale Development and Validation”. Journal of Business Research

Understanding sport media spectators’ preferences: The relationships among motivators, constraints and actual media consumption behavior”. European Journal of International Management

“Participant or Spectator? Comprehending the sport sponsorship process from different perspectives”, EuroMed Journal of Business

The chosen mixed approach, instrument, and data analysis need further analysis. More specifically, as far as the analysis is concerned more details are needed, in order to better highlight the proposed relationships. 

The section of results was quite clear and well written and presented.

Discussion and Implications: There was a bit of a reach here in terms of providing conclusions that were not a direct result of the analyses. These distinctions were not supported or justified by the study. I think the authors need to make sure the conclusions that are presented are based 

An extended proofreading by a native English speaker is recommended. Some parts need a more "formal" approach.

Author Response

Thank you, Reviewer. Attached is the Response.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Regarding the content, I do not have any changes to recommend, it makes a good literary review to support the relevance of the problem to be studied and a good structuring of the content, it uses the correct methodology for this type of study and it is a consistent and well-detailed methodology to give significance to the results they show, makes a good discussion of the results with respect to the studies carried out previously, and marks the conclusion obtained well.

Although I advise looking at these things:

The first table should be table 1, the second table should be table 2, and the third table should be table 3. Fixes this in tables and in-text table citations.

Never two sections without a paragraph of text in between. You should put a couple of lines describing/naming the subsections you are going to deal with within that section. You must correct this between sections 3-3.1.

In section “5. Conclusion", it is necessary to develop a deeper analysis of the conclusions, implications and limitations of the study. In addition to the possible future lines of research opened with this research.

And the references in the “References” section must follow the model set by the journal. You must correct the errors that exist. Look at this in the template.

Author Response

Thank you, Reviewer. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf