Unraveling the Nexus between Road Transport Infrastructures and Economic Growth: Empirical Insights from Nepal’s Case
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsVery interesting paper assessing the possible linkages between road infrastructure and economic development. Overall, this paper is publishable subject to address the following points:
- In the introduction / literature review it would be useful to expand the text to cover earlier contributions, notably Ashauer's seminal paper on the relation between infrastructure investment and economic prosperity. See also several publications by Banister on these linkages. Moreover, it seems that the studies reviewed are largely all in the cointegration tradition, whereas alternatives would be relevant to bring in here
- Choice of methodology (VECM) should be justified and explained why alternatives were not considered.
- Conclusions: it would be relevant to consider further research in this area, e.g. on the extent to which linkages depend on baseline accessibility / connectivity among others
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Author Response
We would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for providing us with constructive comments and inputs, which have helped us improve the manuscript significantly. We have made our best attempts to address the comments and suggestions while revising our manuscript for publication in the economies journal. We list out our responses to the comments provided by reviewer #1 as in the attached file below.
Thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsIn general, the article is interesting and prepared correctly, and the method used is appropriate. However, I have a few comments for the author in order to improve the quality of the prepared article.
1. Please consider including several specific objectives or formulating research hypotheses.
2. The innovative elements of the text should be indicated, i.e. what the research adds to knowledge.
3. In the literature review, please formulate research gaps and refer critically to existing research. It should be clear from this section why this research topic was undertaken and the particular methods used.
4. Data sources should be described and characterized in more detail.
5. Please visualize the examined time series using charts. Has structural break data been examined?
6. There is no information about the correlation between variables (please add a correlation matrix)
7. In section 3.2. Testing and Modeling, there is no need to do so many 3.2.x subsections because they are 1-2 sentences later, which makes reading the article difficult.
8. Please correct and standardize it to the figures magazine format (font, text size, colors).
9. Granger causality tests are missing to confirm the robustness of the results. The robustness of the models should also be verified, e.g. using another method (e.g. ARDL) and/or by adding variables and interactions. It is necessary to examine the robustness of the resulting econometric model in this way.
10. The discussion is unclear, it needs to be corrected and the results should be clearly compared to other studies.
11. Research limitations and future directions for other research should be added.
12. Complete the captions under the tables and figures.
Author Response
We would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for providing us with constructive comments and inputs, which have helped us improve the manuscript significantly. We have made our best attempts to address the comments and suggestions while revising our manuscript for publication in the economies journal. We list out our responses to the comments provided by reviewer #2 in the attached file below.
Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors1. It is suggested to increase the clarity of the pictures in this manuscript for the convenience of readers.
2. What are the innovations of this manuscript and whether it is repeated with previous studies?
3. The methods section describes the use of various statistical tests and models (ADF, PP test, Johansen Cointegration, VECM), but lacks a detailed description of their selection and application. It is recommended to provide reasons for choosing these specific tests and models. Explain why these methods work for data sets and research questions.
4. The data section mentions the use of 25-year annual time series data, but does not adequately describe the sources of the data, any pre-processing steps taken, or potential biases and limitations in the data. It is recommended to supplement pre-processing steps, such as data cleansing or transformation.
5. The following studies were recommended to be properly cited: [1] Evaluation Method for Space Accessibility of Highway Abnormal Indivisible Load Transport, DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1002-0268.2024.03.021 [2]Evolutionary Game for Multimodal Transport Organization Considering New Airport Operation: Taking Beijing Daxing International Airport for an Example, DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1002-0268.2024.05.022
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish can be improved.
Author Response
We would like to thank the editor and the reviewers for providing us with constructive comments and inputs, which have helped us improve the manuscript significantly. We have made our best attempts to address the comments and suggestions while revising our manuscript for publication in the economies journal. We list out our responses to the comments provided by reviewer #3 in the attached file below.
Thank you.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI recommend improving the quality of figures. CUSUM charts can be transferred to an attachment. The final text should be formatted correctly in accordance with the journal's requirements.
Author Response
Reviewr Comments: I recommend improving the quality of figures. CUSUM charts can be transferred to an attachment. The final text should be formatted correctly in accordance with the journal's requirements.
Author Response:
- Thanks very much for checking the revised version and the comment. We have improved the figure quality, especially Fig. 2.
- Thanks for the comment on the CUSUM charts, but we prefer to put them as Fig. 4 and Fig. 5. We apologize but hope you will understand it.
- Thanks for the formatting comment. We have formatted the text in accordance with the journal requirements.
Finally, may we request you to check the submitted PDF file to see the changes made?
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments were addressed.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageEnglish can be improved.
Author Response
Reviewer comment: English can be improved.
Author response: We have significantly revised the language and hope the text is now well-readable. Thanks very much for the great comment. It has greatly helped improve the content.
May we request you to check the submitted PDF file to see the changes made?
Thank you.
