Heterogeneous Effects of China’s Carbon Market on Carbon Emissions—Evidence from a Regression Control Method
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe reviewed paper is clear and relevant to the field of the Sustainability Journal. It is represented in a well-structured manner.
The cited references are primarily within the last five years. They are relevant to the paper topic and don't include an excessive number of self-citations.
Simultaneously, the manuscript has some demerits, which essentially don't influence a general positive paper impression.
At first, the authors must exact formulate the aim of the research.
Second, the paper must contain the research hypothesis.
And third, it is desirable to add a discussion part.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe aim of the study to assess carbon market effectiveness of the heterogeneous carbon trading pilot (CTP) policy impacts using a Common Factors-Based Regression Control Method to evaluate CTP's carbon emission reduction effects. The finding from the study would be important to influence the policy with regards to greenhouse gas emissions reduction.
1. Abstract: needs to make clear the objectives of the study and methods used
2. The introduction section is well written but it would be good if the literature section is merged with the introduction section and shorten.
3. The methods section of the paper was not followed the right scientific procedure. First the paper should come up with the clear description of the study setting, followed by data and continued with its analysis and methods of interpretation.
4. The results and discussion sections should be separated and presented as results, discussion and conclusion. I suggest to follow these and make the paper clear.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article assesses heterogeneous effects of China's carbon market on carbon emissions using the panel data method approach. The analysis is based on six or seven pilot regions. The discussion is very broad and detailed. However, in my opinion, the discussion is too long - not too broad, but too long. First two chapter treats about the general information and literature review. I would recommend to shorten these two parts. Moreover, the aims of the paper are formed in such a way that I am not well-informed what was the aim of paper. First impression is that the paper is of review kind. But it is not. Abstract should be also rephrased to highlight better aims of the paper.
Another thing is that the paper discusses the effects of carbon pilot programmes implemement in different regions in China. Authors compare some pilot mechanisms, but nowwhere these mechanisms are described. it should be at the beginning of the paper: general chaaracteristics of pilot programmes, what kind of decission were made to lower carbon emission in which sectors, what are the features of regions where these pilot programmes were implemented? Currently, the paper may be interesting just for China society, not for the entire society. If Authors characterize pilot regions better, the conclusions made in the paper could be referred to other regions in a world. Details in the attachement.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for inviting me to review this paper. This paper analyzes the differential roles of China's carbon market on carbon emissions. Overall, while it falls in an important research field, I think its current quality does not meet the publication standard and several questions remain to be resolved.
1.There is a lack of clear research motivation. While there are several paragraphs of background content, motivation-related questions still remain to be unraveled. Readers do not know the research objective until they turn in several papers, and this is not professional. The objective should be articulated at the very beginning. Personally, unlike a qualified academic paper, the paper resembles homework where the relationship between several target variables is studied without giving convincing economic motivation/explanation.
2.A follow-up one: why should readers value this research? The economic rationality of the paper is largely insufficient. Put differently, in the empirical story, why should the authors value the so-called heterogeneous effects? Recent studies related to carbon market dynamics are already very ample. What new research strategies/ingredients can the paper contribute in such already established fields, and why they are important?
3. Literature review regarding recent studies related to the carbon market dynamics should be further expanded. The following literature would be helpful and should be cited.
Chevallier, J., Nguyen, D.K. and Reboredo, J.C., 2019. A conditional dependence approach to CO2-energy price relationships. Energy Economics, 81, pp.812-821.
Duan, K., Liu, Y., Yan, C. and Huang, Y., 2023. Differences in carbon risk spillovers with green versus traditional assets: Evidence from a full distributional analysis. Energy Economics, 127, p.107049.
4.There is no discussion regarding whether and how the empirical design deals with the endogeneity issue. The latter might evoke a serious bias on the current research findings.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
There exist many typos and grammatical errors, which make the current paper style very unprofessional. Please find a Native English editor to check and revise your paper very carefully and this work is absolutely necessary.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe research theme of this manuscript is of great practical value. However, there are several issues that need to be addressed urgently.
1. The elaboration of the paper's innovations is relatively plain, and the authors are advised to rewrite this section. For example, the first and fourth points, which elaborate the heterogeneous impacts of carbon trading pilots in terms of methodology and influencing factors, respectively, can actually be combined into one point.
2. In the methodology section (section 3.1), the authors describe the model building process in detail. In order to make it easier for the reader to understand its process, it is recommended that the authors draw a flowchart about the methodology.
3. In the section of variables and data, why did the authors take the natural logarithm of carbon intensity (line 306)? The mean value of carbon intensity is 0.542 (Table 2), so the value after taking the natural logarithm is negative.
4. The authors need to provide reasonable reasons for the selection of control variables. For example, the authors use the ratio of consumer goods retail sales to GDP to represent economic structure, and I doubt its validity.
5. The policy recommendations in this paper are relatively plain and seem to be indistinguishable from the existing literature. The research focus of this manuscript is the heterogeneous impact of carbon trading policy on pilot regions, so the authors should provide corresponding policy suggestions for different regions, rather than generalizing.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageMinor editing of English language required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsimproved very well and can be accepted.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
