Sustainability and Dividends: Complements or Substitutes?

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This articel is designed to evaluate the the relation between environmental, social, and governance commitment levels (ESG) and firm dividend payer status. The authors' results are 14 estimation techniques and the inclusion of variables known to be determinants of payer status. The overall methodology and procedures were valid, and it's well written. 

Author Response

We appreciate the kind response.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study conducted by the authors examines the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitment levels and a firm's dividend payer status. The study is interesting; however, I have a few observations and recommendations:

1. In Table 3, the Adj R squared values are quite low to indicate a good capacity of the model to explain the variation in the dependent data. To what extent are adjusted R² values of 0.27 and 0.25 considered acceptable in the literature for this type of analysis? Are there comparable studies that support these values as adequate? Have alternative models been tested to see if the adjusted R² can be improved? Additionally, have robustness tests been conducted to validate the results?
2. Consider using other model performance measures such as AIC, BIC, or ROC AUC to demonstrate the adequacy of the models.
3. The Conclusion section should be expanded.

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors may need to explain in the abstract what does their finding mean (a positive relation 10 between ESG and dividend payer status)? what does this imply? Why this is the case?

Discussing the findings is almost absent in the results section or the authors may extend the conclusion section and rename it discussion and conclusion to discuss their findings relative to the literature.

In the introduction, the authors should clarify why studying the relationship between dividend and sustainability is important.

The study contributions should be explained in detail and discussed relative to the literature in the introduction section.

The literature section should benefit from more recent research published in 2020 and onwards. Further, although section 2 is named ‘hypotheses’, there are no hypotheses mentioned in this section.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

can be improved.

Author Response

Please see attached.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors implemented my recommendations.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I see the authors have responded to the suggestions revision and so, I recommend publication. 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Good