The Role of Complementary Monetary System as an Instrument to Innovate the Local Financial System

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity of reviewing this paper. I will provide some comments targeting the most pressing issues. I have detailed my concerns below.

In this article, the authors dealt with the subject of Social and complementary currencies as an instrument for SDGs achievement. However, the article is purely descriptive. It does not include the results of empirical research. Nor can it be considered a systematic review article.

In my opinion, the work is not coherent and the individual parts are a combination of different issues related to SDGs. In general, the whole paper seems to be a long introduction to the presentation of research results. For example, the authors in the tab. 1 present (on as many as three pages) definitions of social and complementary currencies, only to define in one paragraph, immediately after the table, how they understand what social and complementary currencies are. So I do not know what is the purpose of providing so many definitions. The following parts of the work, including Table 2 and Table 3, are of a similarly purely descriptive nature. The link between the topic of the paper and the issue of sustainable city development is also not consistent.

 

It is worth noting that in the conclusions the authors themselves state that: "The main limitation of this research is that it does not address the quantitative and empirical study necessary to define the practical framework to implement a complementary social currency in a locality".

So I wonder why the authors decided to write the article without presenting any (quantitative or qualitative) empirical evidence? 

In my opinion, this work does not add value to the current knowledge.

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

first of all I want to thank you for your words. Some of the corrections we have made to the manuscript we think make this a better article. On the other hand, it should be noted that the objective of this manuscript was never to cover an empirical investigation, but rather a description and a theoretical proposal of the contribution that social and complementary currencies, as financial instruments at the local level, can make to the achievement of the SDGs.

I hope that despite not being an empirical investigation, this new version can provide you with another perspective.

sincerely

Prof. Dr. Ramon Rueda Lopez

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals with social and complementary currencies in the role of Sustainable Development Goals’ instrument.

The paper is well organize. The title reflects the paper contents. The abstract is accurate and informative. Here, I recommend the Authors to extend the issues related to conducted research. There is also a need to better highlight the value added of the paper. In the introduction, I suggest the Authors to improve the aim to be more informative. The relevant literature is sufficiently consulted in the paper: the literature review is comprehensive, complex and logic. However, I recommend the Authors to improve the contents of the tables: in regard to table 1, I suggest to put the name(s) of the author(s) of the definition (with year) instead of putting the references to bibliography. This should improve the quality of the Authors analysis. Furthermore, relating to table 3, I suggest to remove numeration of principles to new, separated column- at this moment actions areas seem to dominate (while the title of the table puts attention to principles). The conclusions provide a neat summary of the main discussion of the paper.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, first of all I want to thank your words and your suggestions, without a doubt they make this manuscript an article with greater clarity and, therefore, of better quality.

Thus, I hope that all the suggestions that you have made, you can see them reflected, and that you consider, therefore, the article to meet your expectations.

sincerely

Prof. Dr. Ramón Rueda López

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper applies a synthetic-analytical method to establish the relationship of sustainable development goals (SDGs) and social and complementary currencies (SCCs); and how they can be applied in cities. The topic presented is very interesting as it aims to achieve SDGs through innovations in local financial system with SCCs.

While the paper is in line with the aims and scope of the special issue "Financial Open Innovations for Sustainable Economic Growth", the paper needs significant improvements to make it understandable to the readers and clarify its academic contribution. Therefore, I cannot recommend the paper for publication in its current form. The following are specific comments to improve the paper.

1. Remove periods from the title. Replace the middle period with colon, or paraphrase the title eliminating duplicate term "complementary currencies".
2. Too much background in the Abstract. It should also include the main findings and conclusion.
3. The introduction should clearly describe the literature gap, academic contribution, and explicitly define the research objectives. 
4. While 'complementary currency systems', 'complementary monetary systems' and 'social and complementary currency' seem analogous, the acronym 'CCSs' should clearly be defined (I prefer to use the 'complementary currency system' in relation to the title). On the other hand, Table 1 use 'social and complementary system' to define CCSs. These are confusing.
5. Four-page definition of CCSs is too long. As this is not part of the main objectives (which are not clearly defined), the Table 1 can be omitted but can be summarized in one or two paragraph at most citing the most relevant or categorizing into themes.
6. The contents (sections) do not reflect the Introduction.
   • "Thus, this article is structured, after the introduction, in four sections. First, the Sustainable Development Goals are analysed; the second section deals with complementary currency systems; third, is treated how these complementary currency systems can help to Sustainable Development Goals achievement; and fourth, its application to cities is studied. This article ends with the conclusions and bibliographical references used in the research."
   • The paper has only two sections after the Introduction and before the Conclusion. 
7. A Methodology section can be added in the paper discussing the step-be-step procedure on how "analytical-synthetic method" is done. Or it can be described in the Introduction aside from citing a book definition from 1980.
8. Table 2 outlines the targets that would be 'positively' impacted by the implementation of certain types of CSMS. However, there is NO analysis done on how "these types of currencies have great potential to contribute to achieving the goals of the SDGs". Another column on Table 2 may be added analyzing the 'impact' of CSMS on each SDG target identified.
9. Sub-sections 3.2 and 3.3 only discussed how cities achieve the SDG. These sub-sections should discuss the "how these complementary currency systems can help to (achieve) Sustainable Development
    Goals... (and) its application to cities" as described in the Introduction section; and "to define the practical way in which social and complementary currencies represent an adequate local financial instrument for SDGs achievement and how from the public sector, the private sector, the social and solidarity-based economy and from the social innovation area, more resilient and sustainable cities can be built." as described in the Abstract.
10. Extensive editing of English is required to make the text understandable to readers.
11. Proofreading is also needed. e.g. Section '1.2' in Line 134. '3.1. Subsection' in Line 176. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer, first of all I want to thank your words and your suggestions, without a doubt they make this manuscript an article with greater clarity and, therefore, of better quality.

Thus, I hope that all the suggestions that you have made, you can see them reflected, and that you consider, therefore, the article to meet your expectations.

sincerely

Prof. Dr. Ramón Rueda López

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors presented the rationale for their research approach. They clearly improved the introduction by emphasizing their own contribution and the added value of the work. Additionally, they supplemented Table 2 (which should now be Table 1) with elements explaining how the CSMS can affect the implementation of the SDGs.

 

Since the work has a theoretical dimension, I do not think that the lack of empirical results is its limitation. To remain consistent, the paragraph in the conclusions section (line 435) would need to be deleted or reformulated.

Author Response

Dear reviewer

Thank you so much for your words. They certainly improve the manuscript.

According to your suggestion, you can check that has been deleted the reference to the limitation indicated on line 435.

Sincerely

Prof. Dr. Ramón Rueda Lopez.

 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors made significant changes to improve the revised manuscript.

Most of the comments are addressed. However, there are still some points to further improve the paper.

1. English editing is recommended. This is particular to the new information added in the manuscript. 
   1. What is RH#? e.g. Line 91 "ODS[RH1]", Line 198 "Table 2 [RH2]", and so on...
   2. "Scientific bases" in Line 77 should be "scientific databases".  
2. The Reference section should be overhauled as this section also reflects the scientific soundness of the paper.
   1. Unless the paper is a review article, the list of 121 references occupying 7 pages of the paper is too long for a research article.
   2. Cite scholarly publications as much as possible. The reference may include official publications (e.g. UN reports) when necessary, but non-peer reviewed online sources should be avoided.
   3. Use more recent studies as much as possible. e.g. 1980, 1999 papers    
   4. Proofread the each reference. e.g. duplicate DOIs, pages, mixed up format, spacing, etc.

Author Response

 

Dear reviewer

Thank you so much for your words. They certainly improve the manuscript.

According to your suggestion, the manuscript has been modified according to the following:

1. English editing is recommended. This is particular to the new information added in the manuscript. 

1. 1. What is RH#? e.g. Line 91 "ODS[RH1]", Line 198 "Table 2 [RH2]", and so on...: DONE, Comments made by the translation team have been removed. Likewise, some aspects of the translation that were left unattended in the previous version have been corrected.
   2. ("Scientific bases" in Line 77 should be "scientific databases"):  DONE

2. The Reference section should be overhauled as this section also reflects the scientific soundness of the paper.

1. 1. Unless the paper is a review article, the list of 121 references occupying 7 pages of the paper is too long for a research article: DONE, has been reduced as much as possible
   2. Cite scholarly publications as much as possible. The reference may include official publications (e.g. UN reports) when necessary, but non-peer reviewed online sources should be avoided: DONE, Some of the references that have not followed a peer review process and that were listed in Annex 1 have been removed.
   3. Use more recent studies as much as possible. e.g. 1980, 1999 papers: The oldest references are presented with the purpose of reflecting relevant milestones in the conceptual origin of some ideas.    
   4. Proofread the each reference. e.g. duplicate DOIs, pages, mixed up format, spacing, etc: DONE, Following the MDPI format for the bibliography, some defects detected such as those you indicated have been corrected.

Sincerely

Prof. Dr. Ramón Rueda Lopez.