Evaluation of the Mechanism and Effectiveness of Digital Inclusive Finance to Drive Rural Industry Prosperity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and reflect on your paper, I think this is well structured and well written. It is a good paper.However in my opinion, some important details should be emphasized in order to improve the quality of the research before publishing:

I am concerned that the sample size is not sufficiently representative of population size for a study of these characteristics. Please add some detail.

Which are the limitations of the study? I kindly ask you to mention them in the concluding section.

Finally, the conclusion section should connect the research results with relevant literature citations for validity and reliability

Author Response

   

Dear Reviewers,

 

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the hard work you have put into reviewing and editing my article. Your guidance has not only helped me improve the quality of this article, but also provided significant guidance for my future research work. Based on your valuable feedback, we have made significant revisions to the article. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards,
Langhua Zhang

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

sustainability-2238129

Evaluation of the Mechanism and Effectiveness of Digital Inclusive Finance to Drive Rural Industry Prosperity, February 2023

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According to the authors “this paper is a comprehensive and systematic assessment of the impact of digital inclusive finance on rural industrial development” based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China.

 

Positive aspects:

1). The paper is interesting, and it is inscribed in the developing literature of digital financial inclusion and financial wellbeing in China.

2). The rationale of the idea and the hypotheses to be tested in the paper are well-written and explained in section 3 (and sub-sections).

 

Negative aspects:

1). I would suggest the authors to provide a clear discussion of the originality of their work along with comparisons with relevant studies in China and other countries.

 

Comments and Suggestions:

1). Previous literature must be updated. See also my comments below.

2). 4.2.3-Controlo variables: I believe that other factors such as financial literacy are also important. Financial literacy reflected consumers' educational level, and the usage of financial literacy in FinTech influenced digital financial inclusion. Also, financial literacy increased the likelihood of using financial innovation and digital financial products and services to improve financial access. Financial literacy arises with the debate of financial exclusion, financial market fluctuation, deprivation of financial access, regulation, systemic risk (Siriopoulos 2021). How do you consider/measure this factor in the country under study, given that the score of financial literacy in China is very low (“Financial literacy in China is limited, with a score of 1.155 out of 4. This shows that Chinese people correctly answer only one of four basic financial questions, which implies a lack of financial knowledge in China. People in China are seldom concerned with economic or financial information” (Congmin Peng et al 2022)?  Other papers also discuss the issue of financial literacy and digital financial inclusion. I would suggest discussing this issue.

Additional References:

Siriopoulos, C. (2021), "Financial Markets are Not Efficient: Financial Literacy as an Effective Risk Management Tool",  International Journal of Business and Management Research, 9(1), pp. 65-73, doi.org/10.37391/IJBMR.090110

Congmin Peng et al (2022), Financial Literacy and Portfolio Diversity in China, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 43, p.p. 452–465. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10834-021-09810-3#:~:text=Financial%20literacy%20in%20China%20is,with%20economic%20or%20financial%20information.

3). How should financial regulatory environment to strengthen government supervision and guidance be updated? The authors give a very general answer in Concluding remarks. I would suggest the authors to provide more guidance. Please also see:

Ge, H. et al (2022). Research on the Effect of Rural Inclusive Financial Ecological Environment on Rural Household Income in China, 19(4): 2486.

 

doi: 10.3390/ijerph19042486

4). The paper finds: “The study finds that digital inclusive finance has a positive and significant impact on rural industrial prosperity; the alleviation of financing constraints plays a fully mediating role; the impact is significant in central and western regions and less economically developed regions, but not in eastern regions and economically developed regions. The reason for this difference may lie in the narrowing of the "digital divide" and the "financial divide" between the two.”. However, in another study (Ge et al 2022), “it has a slightly smaller impact on farmers in the west”. Is this divergence of findings due to the econometric methodology applied? It would be interesting for the reader to have an explanation.

 

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

 

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the hard work you have put into reviewing and editing my article. Your guidance has not only helped me improve the quality of this article, but also provided significant guidance for my future research work. Based on your valuable feedback, we have made significant revisions to the article. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards,
Langhua Zhang

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the attached referee report.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

 

I would like to express my sincere gratitude for the hard work you have put into reviewing and editing my article. Your guidance has not only helped me improve the quality of this article, but also provided significant guidance for my future research work. Based on your valuable feedback, we have made significant revisions to the article. Please see the attachment.

Kind regards,
Langhua Zhang

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

No additional comments/suggestions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

      Thank you very much for your review for our article. Your review comments have great guiding significance for us. We have benefited a lot.  Furthermore, On the issue that the English translation level of the article needs to be improved, the Journal Department will arrange English editors to help polish it when the paper is finalized.

Kind regards,
Langhua Zhang

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

n/a

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your review for our article. Your review comments have great guiding significance for us. We have benefited a lot.  Furthermore, On the issue that the English translation level of the article needs to be improved, the Journal Department will arrange English editors to help polish it when the paper is finalized.Thank you for your advice! morevoer, you mentioned two areas for further improvement (1.For empirical research, are the results clearly presented?2.Are the conclusions thoroughly supported by the results presented in the article or referenced in secondary literature?). Can you provide a more detailed and specific guidance? so, I can make more targeted modifications. Thank you for your help!

Kind regards,
Langhua Zhang

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx