Fiscal Expenditure Efficiency Measurement and Its Convergence Analysis on Aging Undertakings in China: Based on a Global Super-Efficiency Slacks-Based Measure Model
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript deals with a significant issue, namely, the aging undertaking in China, and provides valuable analyses for this issue. However, the explanation of the technical terminology and methodology seems to be lacking for this Journal, because the “Sustainability” targets not only specialists in fiscal issues but also readers with a wide range of fields. The followings are suggestions for the further improvements.
1) Explain SBM, DEA, CCR, BCC, and DMU. These words firstly appear without full words and any explanations. The meanings, differences, and justification of using SMB should be clarified. Otherwise, the readers who are not familiar with fiscal issues may lose their incentives to read the manuscript further.
2) Clarify the method of computing the “efficiency of fiscal expenditure in aging undertaking”, “input redundancy”, and “output deficiency”. The highly technical concepts (Section 2.1) and the individual indicators (Table 1) are presented. However. No linkages between them are represented and just the usage of software “matlab 2020” is mentioned.
3) Show a factor analysis on the efficiency of fiscal expenditure in aging undertaking (Section 3.2.1). The current description just explains the time-series trends in each region but does not include any analysis on what factors (inputs and outputs shown in Table 1) have created these trends.
4) Discuss the significance of the convergence analysis. The convergence analysis has usually been used for income disparity just because the disparity itself is an economic problem. However, the issue on efficiency of fiscal expenditure has a goal in terms of amply its improvement but not its convergence. The convergence may contain two directions: totally improvement and deterioration, and if it is the latter case, the analysis may lose its significance. Some discussion is needed on this point.
Author Response
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Reviewer 2 Report
This study covers an actual and problematic issue for almost all countries, population aging. The paper is generally well-writen and uses a global super-efficiency SBM model to measure the efficiency of fiscal expenditure on aging undertaking in China from 2011 to 2020.
I suggest to the authors to split the Introduction on Introduction and literature review for a better organization of the study.
I recommend to the authors take into consideration and discuss the concept of full employment in relation to the aging situation of China's population in the context of fiscal sustainability, also to give this paper a theoretical perspective too (in the introduction).
I also suggest creating a linkage between the results and previous studies/literature.
The authors should present the limitation of their study in the final part.
Author Response
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Reviewer 3 Report
The topic is interesting, but the title is not quite clear. I also have several comments as follows:
What is SBM? This abbreviation must be explained the first time it appears in the text. What are CCR and BCC? All abbreviations must be clarified.
The introduction is well-written. However, it lacks literature reviews relating to the impact of fiscal expenditure or its efficiency on aging. The theoretical concept of convergence must be explained as well.
In the methodology, all notations must be explained. In addition, all notations must be explained.
Eq(5), sigma should be sigma_t
Some related references must be cited to affirm the selection of indicators
This paper has some merits, but the literature review is weak. There is no gap in the research presented in this study. I suggest adding this part intensively. Also, I could not understand the reason for doing the convergence. This must be explained in the introduction and show the importance of this analysis. Many mathematics are errors and unclear. How the authors estimate Eqs (6) amd 7?
Author Response
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Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am satisfied with the aithors' revision following my comments.
Author Response
Dear reviewer #1:
Thank you very much for your serious and constructive comments on our manuscript. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches.
Sincerely,
Lei Zhang
Reviewer 3 Report
Most of the revision is satisfied. However, I still wonder that which estimation techniques the authors used in this study, this must be clarified. Is it random or fixed effects? Why the authors use this estimator, it must be explained. Stata is not estimator, it is program !!!!
Author Response
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