How Does Labor Mobility Affect Common Prosperity?—An Empirical Study Based on a Panel of Chinese Cities
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This study investigates how common prosperity can be achieved by incorporating the literature on labor mobility. The research idea is very interesting and makes sense to me. However, the arguments are really complex and even hard to follow. For publication, this paper should be improved a lot. Let me discuss what the authors further consider for publication.
1. Concept definition
One of the critical issues in this paper is use of terms. There are term variations which make the logic of the arguments vague and unclear. For example, common prosperity is interchangeably used with common wealth, common affluence without defining each. Also, there are a lot of jargons and undefined terms throughout the paper. Terms should be clearly defined when they appear. Otherwise, readers have different meanings of the terms and thus make them feel complex to understand the main points of this study. Also, concepts should be able to self-explain. For example, industrial structure optimization level is hard to figure out its meaning and its ontology. Eventually the concepts are explained but the authors may want to make a quick route to make readers understand the concepts.
2. Research motivation
In the introduction section, the research motivation should be clearly stated. The paper should provide the answer as to why this study is so important. Specifically, why labor mobility is so important to figure out the ways to achieve common prosperity should be clearly discussed based on what we have already known. Given that common prosperity is driven by Chinese contexts, academic readers are curious about how different the term of common prosperity is from what they have already known as intellectual dialogues related to inequality or economic and regional development. The authors may want to articulate beyond-contextual statements on common prosperity to succinctly provide the research motivation. The prior research on inequality could be used to make readers understand why the achievement of common prosperity should be investigated.
3. Data
Data description is not clear enough. The number of observations (and how the authors reached to this number) and the unit of analysis are not elaborated. Further, it could be explicitly discussed how valid the data frame is, such as time frame, sampling procedure, etc.
While I found the measurements interesting, the variables measured seem to be revisited. For example, how the CW components are compiled to measure the variable is not specifically stated. For the variable FIA, based on the entropy measure, its value exceeds 1 (max 11.189). I suspect that its computation has an error somewhere. The authors may want to check whether the measured variables are valid before analyses.
4. Typos
There are a lot of typos and errors, which severely impair understanding the main points of this study. For better readability, the authors could check those before submitting.
Hope these help to develop such a potential paper.
Author Response
We have uploaded the revised response to the file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is interesting but it has too much shortcomings. Please check the comments below:
1. Proofread is needed. There are too much grammatical errors, typos, etc.
2. Please check the quotation form. In the text only surname of the author and year of paper publication are show. Even, in your paper you put in several cases the name of the authors. Please make necessary corrections.
3. You finish the introduction with the objective of the study. What about the methods, result, originality? Please describe briefly these parts too in the introduction.
4. Yo propose H1 based only your opinion, no literature that argues the proposition of the hypothesis. Please correct it.
5. Please explain all acronyms in the text ones they appear first time.
6. The acronyms for the variables are not intuitive (i.e. openness to the outside world (FDI)). Please make the table of the variables that would be visual and better to understand for the readers.
7. Please propose theoretical and practical implications (you have it like the recommendations)
8. Post main limitations of the study
Good luck!
Author Response
"We have uploaded the revised response to the file."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a very interesting paper.
I will suggest to quote the labour market literature on job mobility and labour market outcomes.
Also, I will improve the quality of the "equations" and delete the numbers/words in bold.
Also
Author Response
"We have uploaded the revised response to the file."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
The authors argue for the development-promoting effects of intersectoral mobility within the "shared prosperity" (gongtong fuyu) programme, which bears the name of President Xi Jinping and has a broad content. They argue that "labour mobility can promote the economic development of both labour inflow and labour outflow regions and reduce the regional development gap, so that common prosperity can be achieved." The concept aims to achieve a truly more equal society. In the mid- and long term, they want to bring hundreds of millions of farmers and workers into the middle class through public programmes. The question is, however, whether the migration of the rural population to industry, which the authors see as beneficial, really raises the absolute incom? How is the rural exodus compatible with the 'rural revitalisation' (xiangcun zhenxing) programme? The risk of labour migration in China is illustrated by the following figures: in 2012, services accounted for 45.5 per cent of GDP, industry for 45.4 per cent and agriculture for 9.1 per cent; in 2021, services for 53.3 per cent, industry for 39.4 per cent and agriculture for 7.3 per cent. In other words, while workers are moving from agriculture to industry, both sectors are still showing declining numbers. Declining numbers in agriculture could threaten food supplies. The statistics do not show the significant growth that the authors show. However, this can be refuted by the fact that household disposable income did increase by 66% between 2013 and 2020, with an increase of 82% in rural areas, meaning that in this important ratio, the gap has narrowed, albeit not drastically. The content of this article is valuable and forward-looking, but as a complement, I would suggest exploring how welfare targets can be translated into policy-relevant indicators. Regional welfare indicators should be clearly linked to regional policy objectives that are coordinated across and within different levels of government. The OECD framework is recommended for this purpose. The framework looks at 9 dimensions: (1) income, (2) job opportunities and (3) housing, which capture material conditions. (4) health, (5) education, (6) environment, (7) safety, (8) access to services and (9) citizenship, cover the quality of life. The dimensions can be useful to examine because they are best measured not by input and output indicators but by real outcome indicators. Caution should be exercised when considering the 'omnipotence' of mobility and expecting it to level out regional disparities. The Chinese economy has undergone major qualitative changes, with high-tech industries and services becoming the main drivers. The country is much more mature and developed, but it is also ageing, and the primary sector will be the main victim. The return effect cannot be proven, young generations are now more individualistic, opting for easier, more financially rewarding jobs. I suggest that the authors mention these potential problems and propose solutions.
Author Response
"We have uploaded the revised response to the file."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
The subject addressed is not very well reflected in the economic literature. The current state of knowledge on this topic is presented succinctly, without sufficient arguments that the topic is of interest for research. I recommend better documentation of research objectives and hypotheses by referencing similar studies presented in the mainstream publications.
Author Response
"We have uploaded the revised response to the file."
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The revision has been much improved. I think this paper is ready to be published. Congratulations! But, the correltion table and its interpreations should be included in the paper. And Table 7 should be modified to let readers understand it more easily.
Author Response
Thank you for your advice. I don't know why the format of Table 7 seems so strange after submission, because it works fine on my computer. However, I reformatted Table 7 to make it look easy to understand. If there are any more questions, I'll work with the editor to fix them later.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
You have improved the work considerably, the quality has improved and the structure is more coherent. I would suggest you to add more recent literature, among them this article seems to me essential for your study, besides it is from 2023.
Good luck
Gelashvili, V., Gomez-Ortega, A., & Flores-Ureba, S. (2023). Transport companies based on their size and management type: has Covid-19 conditioned their solvency?. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 1-21.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your advice. I have added 9 new references (published in 2020-2023) related to my research according to your requirements
Reviewer 5 Report
The article has been significantly improved. The authors detailed the current state of knowledge, bringing arguments to support the scientific relevance of the subject addressed. I believe that the article can be published in this form.
Author Response
Thank you for your affirmation of my paper. Thank you very much for your suggestions on my paper.
