Relationship between Disaster Shock Experience and Farmers’ Entrepreneurial Inclination: Crisis or Opportunity?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)
Authors have greatly enhanced the quality of the scholarship and addressed my concerns, recommendations, and feedback adequately. The manuscript is now worthy of publication in my opinion.
Author Response
We are honored to have your approval for my revision, your suggestions are very important to improve the quality of the article. hope everything is fine.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
I am pleased to have reviewed this interesting article. Upon my careful review, I think that article needs major revisions to improve its quality. Please refer to the following comments:
1. The authors provide a comprehensive introduction and theoretical foundation on the topic of farmers' entrepreneurship in the context of disaster shocks. However, the language could be more concise. Particularly, the explanations sometimes feel redundant. For example, in lines 153-169 and lines 187-215, similar ideas are repeated. It might be beneficial to trim these sections to make the manuscript more concise.
2. Please provide more explicit definitions and elaborations of key terms and concepts. For instance, "risk appetite" is a crucial term in the text, but it's not clearly defined. Providing an explicit definition would ensure the readers are on the same page as the authors.
3. The authors could consider including more recent literature in their review. While the current references provide a solid grounding for the manuscript, adding more recent studies would ensure that the manuscript reflects the latest developments in the field. Some relevant literature is suggested below:
https://doi.org/10.1111/cjag.12184
https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051326
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13367
4. The process of data collation and cleaning is mentioned, but it lacks a detailed explanation. Describing the specific methods used to eliminate discrepant data and missing values, as well as any assumptions made during this process, would provide a more complete understanding of the data preparation phase.
5. The mediating variable "risk appetite" is measured using a single question, which may oversimplify this complex construct. It could be valuable to consider a more comprehensive measure that captures the multidimensionality of risk appetite.
6. The text could benefit from a more detailed explanation of why structural equation modeling (SEM) was chosen for the mediating effects analysis. While it is noted that SEM is the best framework for such analysis, some further justification or supporting references would be helpful for the readers to fully understand this choice.
7. The study presents a detailed descriptive analysis of the data collected. However, it would be worth exploring the possible reasons for the seemingly low rate of entrepreneurship among farming households, which stands at 15.5%. Understanding the barriers to entrepreneurship could be a crucial insight for policy recommendations.
8. It is commendable that the study considers the issue of multicollinearity among variables, but the discussion about endogeneity seems less robust. The choice of the "1959-1961 mortality" as an instrumental variable needs further justification. It is unclear how this variable is relevant or uncorrelated with the error term in the main equation.
9. In the results section, please elaborate on how the U-shaped relationship between disaster shock experience and entrepreneurship was established. While the U-shape test results are presented, the underlying assumptions or the theoretical foundation that guided this testing is not expounded upon. This further explanation would aid readers in appreciating the complexities of this relationship.
Minor language editing is needed.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your detailed review of the draft of the thesis and your constructive suggestions and comments, which are very critical for the improvement and refinement of the thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to have a high-level dialogue with you and to explain the changes you have made to the thesis in the light of your suggestions and comments and the topic of the thesis. At the same time, the manuscript is touched up by a professional touch-up agency after it has been revised. Due to the limitations of knowledge and objective conditions, we hope you will bear with us if we do not change enough.
We would like to thank the referee again for taking the time to review our manuscript.
Thank you very much for your attention and time. Look forward to receive your approval!
Yours Sincerely
Wenlin Gao
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
In this paper, the authors investigate the relationship between farmers' experience of disaster shocks and their engagement in non-agricultural business activities (referred to as farmers' entrepreneurship). While the overall presentation is commendable and likely to interest readers, I have a few suggestions.
Minor:
§ Regarding the term "farmers' entrepreneurship," it would be beneficial to clearly define it in the abstract and early paragraphs to aid readers' understanding.
§ The introduction section should begin with a concise background, motivation, research question/objective, and the significance of the study. The final sentence should summarize the main results. The rest of the introduction is satisfactory.
Major:
§ The authors assert a causal relationship between disaster shock experience and farmers' entrepreneurial activities, mentioning mediating effects of other variables. However, the empirical model presented consists only of probit and SEM, without conducting causal mediation analysis. If the authors intend to conduct such analysis, I recommend referring to the suggested literature.
§ Imai, K., Keele, L., & Tingley, D. (2010). A general approach to causal mediation analysis. Psychological methods, 15(4), 309.
§ Imai, K., Keele, L., Tingley, D., & Yamamoto, T. (2010). Causal mediation analysis using R. In Advances in social science research using R (pp. 129-154). Springer New York.
§ Tingley, D., Yamamoto, T., Hirose, K., Keele, L., & Imai, K. (2014). Mediation: R package for causal mediation analysis.
§ If the authors do not plan to conduct causal mediation analysis, they should refrain from claiming causality.
§ With the current methods, it is not possible to determine the effect of disaster shock experience on farmers' entrepreneurship.
§ I strongly advise revising the paper and editing statements that imply causality (e.g., lines 8, 10, 12, 18, 79, 92, 100, 301, 309, 400 … etc.).
§ I also suggest revising Figure 2, avoiding the use of arrows, as contemporary literature employs Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) to establish causality. For a comprehensive understanding of causality through DAGs, please refer to the provided sources.
o Imbens, G. W. (2020). Potential outcome and directed acyclic graph approaches to causality: Relevance for empirical practice in economics. Journal of Economic Literature, 58(4), 1129-1179.https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26104/w26104.pdf
o Williams, T. C., Bach, C. C., Matthiesen, N. B., Henriksen, T. B., & Gagliardi, L. (2018). Directed acyclic graphs: a tool for causal studies in paediatrics. Pediatric research, 84(4), 487-493.
The overall presentation of the paper is good. However, the validity of the authors' causal claims need to be addressed, as the current methodology of employing only probit and SEM is insufficient.
To ensure the paper's suitability for acceptance, it is essential for the authors to consider and incorporate the suggested comments.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your detailed review of the draft of the thesis and your constructive suggestions and comments, which are very critical for the improvement and refinement of the thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to have a high-level dialogue with you and to explain the changes you have made to the thesis in the light of your suggestions and comments and the topic of the thesis. At the same time, the manuscript is touched up by a professional touch-up agency after it has been revised. Due to the limitations of knowledge and objective conditions, we hope you will bear with us if we do not change enough.
We would like to thank the referee again for taking the time to review our manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)
I appreciate your efforts in incorporating my previous comments, and I can see that the quality of your manuscript has improved. Please ensure that the previous comments I provided are accurately reflected in the final version and have not been altered.
English looks fine.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
We appreciate your confirmation of our revisions. We will do our best to ensure that the previous comments you provided are accurately reflected in the final version and that they have not been altered.
We would like to thank again for taking the time to review our manuscript.
Hope all goes well for you!
Yours Sincerely
Wenlin Gao
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Authors provided a good overview on the importance and effect of disasters on Chinese farmers. As the journal is a globally read journal by mostly researchers including some practitioners, more global literature of farmers experiencing agricultural disasters is necessary. Here are some to strengthen your literature review:
Floods - https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020366 and https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065565
Hurricanes - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17031050
Global disaster impacts - https://doi.org/10.37433/aad.v3i1.175 and https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2020.103023
The Theoretical Foundations and Hypotheses section is the strongest section of the manuscript.
Authors did not provide how the data collection instrument was examined for validity and type of validity. Additionally, construct reliability coefficients were not provided. Both validity and reliability are gatekeeper thresholds for social science research dissemination (Cronbach, 1951; Field, 2013; Likert, 1932). These inclusions are imperative to ensure the data is both valid and reliable and precursors before this scholarship have a chance at publication.
Table 2 did not provide the anchors of the scale in the Note below the Table indicating what .155 "meant" or as compared to what? Likewise in the same Table we do not know what 4.633 is or how it was measured. The anchored scale's measurements that produced Table 2 needs to be in the paragraph that proceeds the table or in Table 2's Note section.
In Table 4, there is not a Note section that informs the academic community what *** means in the Table 4. The same exists for Table 5 through Table 9.
Given the large number of respondents and, besides Table 5 column 10, very small variance resulting from the regression models. Therefore, authors need to disclose the full limitations of the study much more broadly and deeply than the included "Due to data limitations, the long-term effects of man-made disaster shocks on farmers' entrepreneurship have not been identified, and only the short-term inhibitory effects have been examined." The provided N = 39,113 responses with minimal variance reported in troublesome to this reviewer in addition to the authors making broad generalizations about the results in the Discussion and Conclusions sections.
Recommendations for future research would be beneficial for scholars that follow this team in studying this phenomena not only in China but around the world.
Also, recommendations for practitioners or change agents working in local communities with farmers on a regular basis would been advantageous to practice and help the authors convey the extent their research informs practice and not just science.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your detailed review of the first draft of the thesis and your constructive suggestions and comments, which are very critical for the improvement and refinement of the thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to have a high-level dialogue with you and to explain the changes you have made to the thesis in the light of your suggestions and comments and the topic of the thesis. At the same time, the manuscript is touched up by a professional touch-up agency after it has been revised. Due to the limitations of knowledge and objective conditions, we hope you will bear with us if we do not change enough.
In addition, in order to facilitate your review, we have marked in red the parts of the revised manuscript that have changed a lot. The specific changes are shown in the following word file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper discussed the influence of farmers' experience with disasters on their entrepreneurial inclination based on model and variable analysis, which has good theoretical and practical value, and is a very interesting work. I think publication in the journal could be considered after some necessary revisions.
（1）References appear to be formatted incorrectly in the text, which can easily lead to confusion. Square brackets are usually used.
（2）It is suggested to explain more about Figure 1, especially the U-shaped curve.
（3）The symbols in lines 378-400 seem to be out of format.
（4）Starting from Table 3, the relationship between (1) and (25) is not clear enough.
（5）In formula (1) - (6), Yi appears four times. What is their relationship?
（6）If you can present your results with appropriate graphs, it will greatly improve the professionalism and readability of your paper.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your detailed review of the first draft of the thesis and your constructive suggestions and comments, which are very critical for the improvement and refinement of the thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to have a high-level dialogue with you and to explain the changes you have made to the thesis in the light of your suggestions and comments and the topic of the thesis. At the same time, the manuscript is touched up by a professional touch-up agency after it has been revised. Due to the limitations of knowledge and objective conditions, we hope you will bear with us if we do not change enough.
In addition, in order to facilitate your review, we have marked in red the parts of the revised manuscript that have changed a lot. The specific changes are shown in the following word file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Brief summary: This is a study of the relative responsiveness of farmers in China to disaster experience. More specifically, the authors seek to examine whether the experience of disaster causes farmers to become less entrepreneurial in the short term (and then recovering after a period of recovery). They draw upon a valuable data source, the 2019 China Household Finance Survey. They find that there is a basis for their "U shaped curve" hypothesis of disaster response.
Decision: revise and resubmit after significant changes
Criticism: This is in many respects an interesting paper about an important topic. As a scholar with an interest in peasant responses to climate and other disasters, I was especially interested to read it. However, in my judgment, the paper is not yet fit to be published in Agriculture. I suggest that the authors revise the paper to address the following points:
1. The major problem concerns (what I perceive to be) a mismatch between the aims of the study and the data set. Simply put, the authors want to measure farmers' entrepreneurship (dependent variable) and disaster experience (independent). But they do not have direct data on these two factors.
1.a. For the former, they use answers to the question, "Are you currently involved in commercial ... production and business ventures...". This is not at all the same as entrepreneurship, at least, not as I understand the word. A peasant household may occasionally engage in commercial production of an agricultural crop without exhibiting "entrepreneurship." Conversely, a wiley farmer might have an entrepreneurial approach to household management yet not engage in formal commercial production and business ventures.
1.b. For the latter, the authors do not seem to have original data on "disasters". Instead they use answers to the question of whether the household has experienced a "significant" "event" (excluding marriages and births). This is a very broad question, one that could prompt many subjective replies. Whatever else we might say, it does not seem to mean "disaster".
Briefly put, the study fails to justify its use of these two data points to answer the questions it aims to answer. Consequently the very elaborate study is based upon a weak analytical foundation.
2. As a separate matter, the central finding -- disasters reduce entrepreneurship -- does not make a major contribution to the literature. We already know this. I recognize that this is not a reason to not-publish the paper. But it does mean that this paper has a burden of providing a clear analytical design and a well-written discussion.
3. Finally, a few minor writing issues:
a. The numbers to references do not look correct on the page
b. The paper is about 15% longer than it needs to be
c. pp 624-627: Are hh with higher income really more constrained by disaster shocks? I do not believe it.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate your detailed review of the first draft of the thesis and your constructive suggestions and comments, which are very critical for the improvement and refinement of the thesis. We are grateful for the opportunity to have a high-level dialogue with you and to explain the changes you have made to the thesis in the light of your suggestions and comments and the topic of the thesis. At the same time, the manuscript is touched up by a professional touch-up agency after it has been revised. Due to the limitations of knowledge and objective conditions, we hope you will bear with us if we do not change enough.
In addition, in order to facilitate your review, we have marked in red the parts of the revised manuscript that have changed a lot. The specific changes are shown in the following word file.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
