The Impact of Aging on Housing Market: Evidence from China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

- Comment 1: The text needs to be professionally edited. At the moment, there are some typos and the quality of the language needs to be seriously improved.

- Comment 2: Line 44 ->  What do the author mean with ‘flexible assets’?

- Comment 3: Line  94 -> Please, use ‘observations’ instead of ‘samples’.

- Comment 4: Line 175 -> Please, replace ‘gaining’ with ‘generating’.

- Comment 5: Line 186 -> IPS unit root test and HT unit root test needs to be properly referenced in the text. Please, provide a reference and the meaning of the acronym.

- Comment 6: Line 191 -> Same comment as above regarding the Westerlund test.

- Comment 7: Lines 211-219 -> This paragraph is not well-written. Please, elaborate further and explain clearly the findings.

- Comment 8: Line 234 -> Please, provide references and full names for LR test and WALD test.

- Comment 9: Lines 239-250 -> Please, provide some references to support the findings included in this paragraph.

- Comment 10: Lines 255-259 -> The authors are encouraged to rephrased the text. I fully understand the message but I do not think that the language used is appropriate for a scientific article.

- Comment 11: Lines 264-282 -> The text is not linked to the existing literature. The authors are encourage to related the content to the literature review.

- Comment 12: Discussion section -> This section needs to be fully rewritten. In this section I would need to see further discussion of the results presented in Section 4. It would also be very important to ‘connect’ this discussion and the findings of the article to the existing literature. Is the paper supporting the general conclusions provided by previous scholars? Are the findings in conflict with the existing literature? Please, compare your findings with others provided by other authors. When rewriting this section it would be also important to refer to the evidence identified for other countries.

- Comment 13: The paper is not well positioned in the existing literature. I am missing a good literature review and a more elaborated link of the paper with the available work done by other authors. This is an important point for the authors to work on. The paper could refer to some international work done by Arestis and Gonzalez-Martinez . The reference is as follows: Arestis, P. and González, A.R. (2015), ‘Importance of Demographics for Housing in the OECD Economies’, Bulletin of Economic Research. This paper will also provide additional references that the authors could also include in their literature review.

- Comment 14: In the concluding section I do not see the need for having three sub-sections. I suggest to remove the headings and rewrite the text accordingly. Moreover, the text included now under ‘revelation’ should be rewritten in order to reach proper ‘academic’ standards. In this section I am missing some text on lessons learnt and policy recommendations.

- Comment 15: Finally, the authors should change the title of the paper to make it more tailored to the content.

 - Comment 16: The content of the paper should be linked to the topic of 'sustainability'. Otherwise, the general audience of the journal will not be interested. 

Author Response

Comment 1: The text needs to be professionally edited. At the moment, there are some typos and the quality of the language needs to be seriously improved. 

Reply 1: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have re-edited the whole text.

Comment 2: Line 46 ->  What do the author mean with ‘flexible assets’? 

Reply 2: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have changed ‘flexible assets’ to ‘liquid assets’. Liquid assets such as demand deposits, cash and other forms of assets.

Comment 3: Line  94 -> Please, use ‘observations’ instead of ‘samples’. 

Reply 3: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have used ‘observations’.

Comment 4: Line 175 -> Please, replace ‘gaining’ with ‘generating’. 

Reply 4: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have replaced.

Comment 5: Line 196 -> IPS unit root test and HT unit root test needs to be properly referenced in the text. Please, provide a reference and the meaning of the acronym.

Reply 5: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have added the relevant literature. The acronym means an initial about the person who proposed the test.

Comment 6: Line 191 -> Same Comment as above regarding the Westerlund test.

Reply 6: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have added the relevant literature.

Comment 7: Lines 211-219 -> This paragraph is not well-written. Please, elaborate further and explain clearly the findings. 

Reply 7: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We changed it to a more intuitive spatial cluster diagram.

Comment 8: Line 234 -> Please, provide references and full names for LR test and WALD test.

Reply 8: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We provided the full name of the tests and references.

Comment 9: Lines 239-250 -> Please, provide some references to support the findings included in this paragraph. 

Reply 9: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have provided the references to support the findings included in this paragraph.

Comment 10: Lines 255-259 -> The authors are encouraged to rephrased the text. I fully understand the message but I do not think that the language used is appropriate for a scientific article. 

Reply 10: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We explain the results in terms of the expansion of women's higher education.

Comment 11: Lines 264-282 -> The text is not linked to the existing literature. The authors are encourage to related the content to the literature review. 

Reply 11: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have provided the references to support the findings included in this paragraph.

Comment 12: Discussion section -> This section needs to be fully rewritten. In this section I would need to see further discussion of the results presented in Section 4. It would also be very important to ‘connect’ this discussion and the findings of the article to the existing literature. Is the paper supporting the general conclusions provided by previous scholars? Are the findings in conflict with the existing literature? Please, compare your findings with others provided by other authors. When rewriting this section it would be also important to refer to the evidence identified for other countries. 

Reply 12: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have rewritten this section. We added a comparison between the results of this study and those of other countries and other scholars.

Comment 13: The paper is not well positioned in the existing literature. I am missing a good literature review and a more elaborated link of the paper with the available work done by other authors. This is an important point for the authors to work on. The paper could refer to some international work done by Arestis and Gonzalez-Martinez . The reference is as follows: his paper will also provide additional references that the authors could also include in their literature review. 

Reply 13: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have added the important literature provided by reviewer.

Comment 14: In the concluding section I do not see the need for having three sub-sections. I suggest to remove the headings and rewrite the text accordingly. Moreover, the text included now under ‘revelation’ should be rewritten in order to reach proper ‘academic’ standards. In this section I am missing some text on lessons learnt and policy recommendations.

Reply 14: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We have rewritten this section and added the policies.

Comment 15: Finally, the authors should change the title of the paper to make it more tailored to the content.

Reply 15: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. We changed the topic of this study to focus on the impact of aging on housing.

Comment 16: The content of the paper should be linked to the topic of 'sustainability'. Otherwise, the general audience of the journal will not be interested. 

Reply 16: Thanks for the reviewer's suggestion. The text has linked to the topic of 'sustainability'.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In general I like the paper – in its simplicity it has an important message with significant policy implications. However, the paper is partly unreliable and needs more details:  

Table 1 – better description needed. Are these annual average again averaged (31 units * 10 years = n=310)??? If yes, some growth trend (if any) should be reported (e.g. geometric mean)

Eq.5 – it is not squared inverse distance, no power next to dij

Independent variables – they are explanatory variables, they are not independent as they may also depend on many factors. In regressions in general we put dependent (y) and explanatory (x) variables

General Interpretation of the model (lines 150-160) – this is model of path dependence (when previous period included as explanatory variable), and other x variables with their coefficients have very specific interpretation: they are pushing out of trend which results from temporarily correlated variables. This was not mentioned

Fig.1 – is the demand for flats in group 0-18 years really available? I do not understand this – should we expect that 1 year baby purchases a flat? That should be better explained. Interpretation of Fig.1 must be supplemented – lines 169-170 – you write the demand is low and than drops – you forget to mention that in-between it increased for those who are 30 -50. Sentence lines 170-172 is out of context. There is no anchoring in previous literature review etc. Educational aspects should be better introduced

4.2.1 Methods of IPS & HT unit root textx + Westerlund test should be better described, no nothing on that

Fig.2,3 & 4  should be without geometric figures but with colours – now nothing visible

Table 5 – no idea what are 3 models in columns, please explain. That is more serious is reliability of results – you put many highly correlated variables: housing price (hp) with L.hp (temporal lag of hp) with W*L.hp (spatio-temporal lag) with spatial rho – I never seen the model that has all those variables so highly significant, it is simply impossible

Table 6 – you do not interpret strength of spillover effect – indirect/total effect. Usually, direct (internal) effect takes majority of relation, in this case it is just 5-10%, while the rest of effect goes away. This would mean that all relations are cross-regional and local demography etc does not matter for local housing market what is nonsense.

Database CGSS – please describe It wider, give some web links and possibly make the dataset available (if not restricted)

Discussion lines 290-315 – this is the same as we read before, nothing new – it is redundant or to be changed.

6.2 revelation – gender issues in policy implications should be considered

Data availability statement – please add link to open repository (as Figshare) where data and map are available. Please make codes available – which software was used?

 

References – many of references are taken from Chinese, what is impossible to verify to other readers. Please add English-language literature that has DOI, also for other countries. China, even with explicit one-child policy, is similar to other countries where one-child situation became a choice of people (e.g. because of wealth ect) – so international comparisons are possible   

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to thank the authors for revising their previous version of the manuscript. I am glad to see that all my comments have been properly taking into account, and therefore, I think that the manuscript is now publishable material. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors addressed all my comments, paper is ready for publication