Productivity Improvement from the Mixed-Ownership Reform: A Financial Frictions Perspective
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article “Productivity Improvement from the Mixed-Ownership Reform: A Financial Frictions Perspective”, draws on the research results of the two theories of cooperative team game and financial friction, and discusses the mixed reform of state-owned enterprises from the perspective of eliminating financial mismatch and improving the overall economic production efficiency through cooperative teams among enterprises with different ownerships. The model, which is created in the paper, is based on the general equilibrium theory of that heterogeneous producers face collateral restrictions, and analyzes the mixed ownership reform of enterprises under the condition of financial friction.
The article is mainly empirical, but it is based on theoretical assumptions. The literature review is prepared very well. The results of the study were presented in a consistent manner, supplemented with figures to illustrate the analyzed problems. The figures are legible and help to better understand the analyzed issues.
The conclusions result from the conducted analysis, they are complete. The conclusions are very clear, pointing to specific solutions. The type and scope of source materials is adequate to the analyzed problem. The article has the correct structure.
In my opinion the research methods used in the article were not clearly indicated or described. It can be improved.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is very interesting but something is missing, so major revisions are required before the publication.
The abstract is very concise, it would be appropriate to rewrite it following the indications on the minimum content it must contain in accordance with the journal's rules.
The introduction is quite confusing, it is advisable to clarify at the beginning to which country you are referring to and also what are the global trends on the theme.
Section 3 Theoretical model of enterprises under financial friction is very interesting, but not very clear. It is advisable to briefly describe the rationale of the whole process at the beginning and then explain each in a proper way each equation.
The other sections are fine.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Review
The paper ‘Productivity Improvement from the Mixed-Ownership Reform: A Financial Frictions Perspective’ presents interesting research how mixed-ownership reform improve the performance of the firms, productivity and financing.
Introduction reveals contribution and structure of the paper. Figure 1. Analysis framework of cooperative team game model (page 2) has some misunderstanding title as ‘game model’ instead of, for example, ‘trade-off choice’. It is not clear why authors use term 'cooperative team game model' for this graph.
Aspects 1 and 2 (impact of cooperative teams on production efficiency) include very similar points (page 3) and have to be combined or formulated more clearly.
Literature review consists of very good investigation of research about state-owned enterprises in China’s economy. It gives possibility to disclosure personal contribution of author. Author wrote ‘total factor productivity, labor and capital to China's economic growth is 20.7%, 3.3% and 76.0%’. It needs clarification why impact of labor only 3.3% and what does it mean ‘total factor productivity’ (it is a sum of all resources or not? but which ones if labor and capital are highlighted separately). (lines 123-124, page 3)
Theoretical model includes mathematical description of main assumptions of enterprises under financial friction.
Preference. It is necessary to explain how intuitively we can interpret preferences of entrepreneurs (page 6). The more consumption c(t), the more utility of entrepreneur? Symbols ‘p’, ‘E0’ are without any explanations.
Production technology. z means technological progress or not? z is not specified clearly. Why Cobb-Douglass function has constant return to scale? Author does not use any motivation about this assumption.
Constraint conditions. There is no reasonable and intuitive explanation of mortgage constraints. Why mortgage constraints instead of financial or capital restrictions? If it is a new assumption of author, please, clearly specify it.
Lagrange method does not solve this equation in respect to μ. At the same time, author demonstrates transparent solution Lagrange method in respect to labor and capital.
Lemma 2: savings s is not a linear function of wealth (a), but non-linear one.
It is necessary to define formula of productivity Z, because there are different interpretation of this index (as ratio of output to resource in monetary or physical form or something else).
Table 1 includes Stable Nash Equilibrium (independence; independence). Author describes and explains only unstable NE. At the same time, author does not check mixed equilibrium of this payoff matrix.
Author needs to explain which software they use to obtain these results of numerical simulation. They used static or dynamic numeric simulations? Why these results are reliable? How many runs they used?
Technical errors:
[Error! Bookmark not defined.] through all the paper
page 3: (85) term CDE – abbreviation is unknown
page 5: (197) OP and LP methods -> abbreviations are not defined
page 12: Table 4. Constraint Function Settings for Mixed Enterprises: 3rd row is a same as 1st one, please delete the same one.
page 16: line 213-214 are same as 577-578
Author prepared very impressive research, which demonstrates advantages of hybrid form of enterprise in contrast of private and state-owned enterprises. Recommendation of author in conclusions supported by theoretical and empirical parts of the paper. Paper includes some comments, which have to be clarified before accepting.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Author,
the changes made to the paper are appreciable, a few small changes still remain to be made before publication: aligning the use of citations with the rules of the journal, better organising the equations so that they are clearly readable.
