Business Confidence in the Sustainable Manufacturing Sector in the Context of Production, Production Prices, and Interest Rates
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. Why studying Slovak Republic and Hungary? Besides the fact that they are neighbors and share similar backgrounds, any other particular reasons to focus on these two instead of the other Central European countries? Please provide more rationale on your motivation and choice of research subjects.
2. Include more explanations on your data source. 1) Provide the link of the OECD database since it is publicly accessible. Do all the variables come from the same database? 2) Provide data description which can be made as a separate section before the current section 3. The statistics of the major variables and the sample size should be clearly explained.
3. Include more explanations on your methodology. Specifically, what is the K-mean method and why is it used? Cite relevant literature if it helps.
4. The correct format of citation in text should be author (year)—for example, Gagea (2012).
5. I suspect that the 4th paragraph in section 1 is unfinished. Please provide more details on the research objective of this paper.
6. In section 3.2, instead of Equation (2) and (3), please show the original regression models explicitly at the very beginning, with the independent and dependent variables and the coefficients.
7. Please improve your English writings and proofread the whole manuscript to avoid typos. For instance, in the abstract line 18, it should be “Data from” instead of “Data form”; in section 1 line 38, “on the other hand” should be following up with an “on the one hand”.
8. Please write out VAT as value added tax (?).
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor English editing is required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsFirstly, I would like to congratulate you on the development of this article. However, there are some improvements to be made.
Abstract. The novelty of the article is missing, as the theoretical and practical implications are missing too.
Introduction. Novelty should be indicated. What is the innovation of the paper? What benefit this paper brings on a theoretical and practical level? It is missing the structure of the paper.
The hypotheses (H1 and H2) should be disaggregated.
How is the level of Business Confidence Indicator affected? Positively or negatively? I think that you should analyse one variable at a time.
Conclusion. The conclusions should be related with literature review and supported by the results presented. The author should present theoretical and practical implications.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorscheck the attachment
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCongratulations to the authors!
They have made the suggested revisions.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for such a highly positive evaluation of our manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI think the authors of this paper answered and revised the first review appropriately.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
thank you very much for such a highly positive evaluation of our manuscript.
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe claim of the paper is the central idea of the paper, and must be argumentative.
It defines the paper's goals, direction, and scope. It is supported by evidence. So, please write it accordingly. Lines 45 to 52 are more adequate to be at the end of Introduction.Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
