A Study on the Changes of Green Total Factor Productivity in Chinese Cities under Resource and Environmental Constraints
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study takes resource and environmental conditions as constraints to examine the changes in Green Total Factor Productivity in Chinese cities. On the basis of existing studies, the research object is set to 283 cities in China, and the study is more refined. Meanwhile, the spatial and temporal changes of urban GTFP are further considered, and the 283 cities are further classified into different grades and analyzed from multiple perspectives. The article is instructive for the study of the current situation and structure of urban economic development, and helps to study the market mechanism and the government's development policy. However, the article also has some defects that need to be revised, as follows:
(1) The practical significance of this study should be mentioned in the abstract section.
(2) In the formulation of the problem section the shortcomings of the current methodology used are mentioned, then a description of the research methodology used in the article should be included to complete the article.
(3) There are obvious formatting errors in lines 123, 127, 128, 131, and 246, which should be carefully checked.
(4) The article examines the changes in urban GTFP from 2003-2019, which is too large a time interval compared with the present, so could it be possible to continue the period based on considering a reduction in the number of cities studied?
(5) The pictures in the article should be adjusted a little, Figure 2 can be adjusted to two lines, and the discounted graph can be made a little more beautiful.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe English can continue to improve and perfect the quality of the paper.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPlease see attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
NA
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDecision: Major Revision
Summary:
I think that this study's focus on comparing spaciotemporal GTFPs change and their geographic character and urban structural differences is important.
However, this paper have 2 serious problems with the methodology.
The methodology for calculating GTFPs is not adequately described.
The explanation of the methodology did not correspond to the results. The methodology to derive the results should be covered in the methodology section.
In addition, please add explanations to some of the results as they are difficult to understand.
Each Part
Line 17
You wrote "283 prefecture cities". In many countries, "prefecture" and "city" are different administrative divisions. Please add an explanation or change this word.
Line28
Twentieth -> 21th
Please change the numbers in the text to Arabic numerals.
Line51
What is “double carbon”?
Line113
Please describe the full name of the EBM abbreviation. Please mention the full name of all abbreviations.
Section.2
All methods for results described in Section 3 should be described in Section 2.
Please explain in this section the geographic, city classifications and so on described in Sections 3.1-3.3.
Please clearly describe the base year for which GTFP = 1.0.
In the present explanation, it is unclear which of the methodologies in 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 is used to link to the results. Please revise the manuscript to link the methodology to the results.
Equation(1)
There is no explanation for θ. Therefore, Equation(7) cannot be obtained and GTFP cannot be calculated.
Please provide a description and units for all letter expressions used in the formula.
Page.3 Line.121
2.1.1->2.1.2
Page.3 Line.123 etc.
“Error! Refence source not found”, this message is software failed. Please change this part and add refence number.
2.2.2
Please add to the “Reference” the statistics information that you used to the data source for your studies analysis. In addition, add the Refence number.
3.1
Since the 5 regions in China are not known to readers from other countries, please describe how they are divided 5 regions using maps in Section.2.
In addition, please explain whether the 283 cities in this study provide a comprehensive analysis of each region or not.
Figure.2
It is difficult to recognize the difference in color, please modify the color.
Table.2
The number of cities in this table is smaller than 283. Please explain in Section.2 how these cities were selected.
3.3 and 3.4.4 Table.3 and Table.4
I was not clearly understanding the difference between “City scale” and “City classification”, please explain how you analyzed them differently methods in Section.2.
In addition, please explain how you determined the classification for each category.
Page.12 Line.370
3.4.4 -> 3.4
Figure.1,3,4
Please provide the names of the x-axis and y-axis.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some part of sentences that are difficult to understand for readers and the explanation needs to be clarified.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI find this paper well organized and has implications for practice in sustainable urban development.
However, some issues along the paper deserve to be further detailed and/or clarified to the reader. There are some comments that should be addressed:
1. The abstract part is important due to it refines the full manuscript; thus, the authors should add innovation points, and further improve the abstract.
2. The first section of the study is Formulation of the problem. I suggest the authors to split it into two sections as: Introduction and Literature review to better structure the study. The introduction should present several aspects that contextualize the research topic and presents the contribution of this work in comparison to previously published publications. The objective of the paper presented need more clarifications to suit the reader to understand the main idea of the paper especially for the study.
3. Regarding scientific novelty. It is necessary to formulate the novelty of the obtained results more carefully. The presented material gives the impression that both methods and results are not new. What then is the scientific novelty of the results obtained by the authors?
4. Given the study’s focus on a specific country, should we consider a broader applicability of the findings? It should assess the potential implications for policymakers and practitioners in sustainable development, especially in similar contexts or countries. Also, what has happened after 2020? Is there a lack of data for the analysed cities? Did the pandemic have any impact?
5. The discussion section should also be included, and the authors should link their findings to the previous studies in the literature.
6. Conclusion section needs to be revised and complemented as well. So far, a detailed summary for future recommendations regarding the topic examined are already added. Moreover, some limitations of the study and future research directions ought to be incorporated as well.
7. Talking about figures, tables, and graphs, it would be desirable to write down, under each of them, their source. I consider it is important to specify if these were downloaded from a specific source or there is the processing of the authors.
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 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDecision: Major Revision
Summary:
The methodology is not fully explained in the revised version.
Not all explanatory variables are presented. There are also a lack of mathematic words explanation, such as not understanding the difference between "θ" and "θ'".
You should be able to conduct results based on the methods presented in this paper. The current description did not allow the reader to calculate the resulting values by your explanate method.
Please revise the description of the methodology from the fundamental point of view.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Maybe English language did not have problem.
However, this papar was lack of "methodology" explanations.
Author Response
请参阅附件。
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAll the recommendations for improvements have been properly addressed so the paper can be accepted in present form.
Author Response
We sincerely appreciate your careful review and enthusiastic work, and thank you again for your comments and suggestions!
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDecision: Minor Revision
Summary:
The methodology explanation is improved in the revised version.
Although the perspective of spatio-temporal analyzing GTFPs has been around before, the method of this study is particularly new and I hope it would be discussed by many readers.
The current version has some difficult-to-understand expressions in English. Therefore, please correct the English expressions.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe current version has some difficult-to-understand expressions in English.Therefore, the English expression needs to be modified.
