Regional Differences and Spatial-Temporal Evolution Characteristics of Digital Economy Development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

None.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please see the attached file. Thanks. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The writing is a nice work. The paper is easy to read.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

A good paper, with a significant result regarding the regional evaluation on digital economy aspects and factors. New studies could prove the adopted methodology, serving for its development and maturity.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Referee report on "Regional differences and spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of digital economy development in Yangtze river economic belt"

This paper is nice and informative. It is well motivated, written in a plain language and easy to follow. My comments are relatively minor.

 

1. Page 2, Paragraph 2: Here you mention that “the economic output of the YEB has reached to 53.02 62 trillion yuan by 2021”. To let the general reader better understand the meaning of these figure, please inform us how high are these figures as percent of the Chinese GDP as a whole.

2. First paragraph of Section 2.1 should better be relegated to the Introduction.

3. You start your analysis from 2012. Explain why.

4. As it is commonly believed that export-oriented firms are generally more advanced, if the data are available, to the economic explanatory variables (Table 2), add the proportion of exporting industries output to regional gross domestic product

5. Also, to better connect the paper to the general economic context, to the end of the “Conclusion & Recommendation” (after the four bullets), I would suggest adding the following:

“Finally, the development of digital economy in the YEB can further increase the general demand for human capital, which is broadly shown to be a key factor for modern economic growth (Azarnert, 2010; 2023).

6. The paper is written in good English, but you still need to clean some linguistic irregularities. For example, Line 17: convergency => convergence; Line 347: divergency => divergence.

 

References

Azarnert, L.V. (2010) Immigration, fertility, and human capital: A model of economic decline of the West. European Journal of Political Economy 26, 431–440

Azarnert, L.V. (2023) Population sorting and human capital accumulation. Oxford Economic Papers 75, 780–801

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 5 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The development of the digital economy is an important factor in ensuring economic, social, and competitive growth through the use of digital technologies, with an important impact in China. Integrating the digital economy with the real economy is seen as a strategy to promote economic development. Thus, in this article, the authors deal with a topical issue with significant implications for the Chinese economy.

1.     Introduction

I believe that this section of the article provides all the information necessary to substantiate the chosen research direction. I have no comments.

2.     Data Processing and Research

Methods Not all variables used in line 109 are defined.

3.     Results and Analysis

Completion of Table S2 with the average on each of the 3 parts (Lower Reaches, Middle Reaches, and Upper Reaches)

4.     Discussion

In my opinion, the authors presented very well the main aspects resulting from the results of the study. I have no other comments.

5.     Conclusion and Recommendations

I have no other comments. The article is very good and well structured; both the methodology and the results of the study are presented in a clear and logical manner.

6.     References

 

The articles used are relevant and up-to-date.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I think the authors have carefully checked and reviesed, I suggest to accept it.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor editing of English language required.