Technical Efficiency of Rice Production in the Upper North of Thailand: Clustering Copula-Based Stochastic Frontier Analysis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Reviewer comment (R.C.): The abstract needs to be improved. Your Abstract should answer these questions about your manuscript: What was done? Why did you do it? What did you find? Why are these findings useful and important? Answering these questions lets readers know the most important points about your study and helps them decide whether they want to read the rest of the paper. Make sure you follow the proper journal manuscript formatting guidelines when preparing your abstract.
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Reviewer comment (R.C.): The authors need to add the following keywords (e.g., Agricultural Economics, Empirical analysis).
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Reviewer comment (R.C.): The introduction needs to be improved, and it is necessary to expose the motivation, the relevance, innovation, and contribution, that this study brings compared with others that existed. Moreover, the introduction of the paper is not well laid out and the purpose. What has already been done in this area, and what does this paper contribute?
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Reviewer comment (R.C.): The authors need to add the following authors to improve the quality of the manuscript.
Do energy efficiency and export quality affect the ecological footprint in emerging countries? A two-step approach using the SBM–DEA model and panel quantile regression. Environment Systems and Decisions (2022). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10669-022-09846-2.
Measuring the economic efficiency performance in Latin American and Caribbean countries: An empirical evidence from stochastic production frontier and data envelopment analysis. International Economics, Volume 169, May 2022, Pages 43-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inteco.2021.11.004.
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Reviewer comment (R. C.): I recommend that the authors need to give a justification regarding the choice of the object of study, variables, and time series. These justifications will facilitate the reapplication of this study by other authors.
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Reviewer comment (R. C.): The section “Conclusion and policy recommendation” needs to be improved.
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Reviewer comment (R. C.): The authors need to create a new section called “Limitations and Future Recommendation”.
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Reviewer comment (R.C.): Moderate English changes required.
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Reviewer comment (R.C.): The article has potential; however, some points need to be resolved, and gaps need to be filled to improve the quality of investigation. Therefore, I feel the manuscript could be reconsidered for publication should you be prepared to incorporate major revisions.
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Author Response
Thank you for your suggestion, we revised the paper following your suggestion.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper needs the following improvements:
The authors should consider rewriting the abstract sections–The ideas of the research could have been more effective through the use of elaborative and concise sentences. The abstract as is, does not provide a concise account of the work and conclusion of the research study. It needs to be more structured and synthesized for research clarity.
Introduction section it is necessary to provide and elaborate on relevant contextual ideas and background leading to research studies, and additional literature to explain why it is important for this research study.
We recommend to authors to explain in further details the research gaps that the paper seeks to close and why the paper is needed to recognize the current gaps in the literature.
The results must be interpretive rather than just descriptive and connect the research results with relevant literature citations for validity and reliability.
Discussing of the results could be improved by interpreting them in support of theories related to the research topic.
The subject is interesting, but the references are limited to 16 sources.
It is important to payinf attention to the tables.
For example, Table 2. Summary statistics of key variables for major rice farmers in first group and second 347 group. Is located after the Table 4. Percentages of technical efficiencies based on the Gaussian family copula of major rice 343 farmers within decile ranges.
Good luck!
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestion, we revised the paper following all of your suggestions and add the reference to 20 sources of reference that related to our study.
Reviewer 3 Report
The paper is well written and can certainly be published, but the authors are advised to consider the following suggestions.
1. Title: Clustering Copula-based Stochastic Production Frontier of Rice Production in the Upper North of Thailand. It can be improved.
2. There are several evaluation techniques for the technical efficiency, such as the tobit regression model, the logit model, and the Data envelope analysis. Why did the author employ a Stochastic Production Frontier? Please justify the benefits of the Stochastic Production Frontier over methodologies.
3. The authors employ the Clustering Copula-based Stochastic Production Frontier. If this is a novel technique, kindly provide detailed significance and advantages along with the reference. 4. Figure 1 contains an unclear numerical value; therefore, the author must offer a figure that is appropriate and unambiguous.
5. The results lacks proper discussion in the light of similar studies. The authors are suggested either to provide a separate discussion section or discuss their results in the corresponding sections.
6. Please provide the limitation of your study
7. Provide values of sigma, gamma, and lambda and interpret them
8. Besides, the following all of references are recommended to be cited for literature improvement:
9: Most of the citations are outdated, the authors are encourages to cite the latest studies and following are some of the recent studies from different authors relevant to their article for citation.
1. Farm-Level Technical Efficiency and Its Determinants of Rice Production in Indo-Gangetic Plains: A Stochastic Frontier Model Approach. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/4/2267.
2. Technical Efficiency of Maize in District Lakki Marwat of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan http://dx.doi.org/10.17582/journal.sja/2020/36.2.402.410
3. Research on the impact of agricultural green production on farmers’ technical efficiency: evidence from China. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13417-4.
Author Response
Thank you for your suggestion, please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
(R.G): The authors have followed all my recommendations and consequently the quality of manuscript increase significantly. For this reason, I recommend accepting it in present form.
Replay:
Reviewer 2 Report
Good luck!
Reviewer 3 Report
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