Economic Evaluation of the Management of Municipal Firms at the Level of Rural Local Self-Governments (Case Study)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

It could be positive to have a map to identify the rural municipalities under study  (line 222 and 223). 

Is necessary a very short context of rural areas in Slovakia, as well as a demographic and economic diagnosis in this areas. In this way the results can be better understood and, in itself, all the paper.

Author Response

Thank you for your review

It could be positive to have a map to identify the rural municipalities under study  (line 222 and 223). 

added table 2 together with a comment

Is necessary a very short context of rural areas in Slovakia, as well as a demographic and economic diagnosis in this areas. In this way the results can be better understood and, in itself, all the paper.

added table 3 together with a comment

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the opportunity to read the paper. Although the topic is interesting and deserves further research, the paper is theoretically methodologically weak. There are  many research hypotheses, but their theoretical underpinning is not made explicit in Section 2. Moreover the authors did not describe the selected variables, only reporting differences in mean. Finally they do not specify the equations of the linear regressions. In my view, the paper needs to be substantially restructured before being published 

Author Response

Thank you for your review

There are many research hypotheses, but their theoretical underpinning is not made explicit in Section 2.  We reduced the hypotheses, while in parentheses we identified the a/b breakdown.   Moreover the authors did not describe the selected variables, only reporting differences in mean. Added new table 1 with selected moment characteristics of profit and sales for individual monitored years   Finally they do not specify the equations of the linear regressions. The equations of the used models are in individual tables (tables 6, 7, 10, 11)

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for having given me the opportunity to read the revised version of the paper, which has substantially improved. I have still some concern about the presentation of the hypotheses, the methodology, and the conclusions. 

Presentation of the hypotheses. 

I suggest to present the hypotheses separately from the methodology and to explicitly justify them in the light of the literature review.

 Methodology

If I understand well the regressions used to test H2 and H4 did not include any control variable. I suggest to include other regional characteristics in the equation (such as regional GDP per capita and unemployment rate)

Conclusions

I suggest to derive some policy implication from your findings

Author Response

Thanks for having given me the opportunity to read the revised version of the paper, which has substantially improved. I have still some concern about the presentation of the hypotheses, the methodology, and the conclusions. 

Presentation of the hypotheses. 

I suggest to present the hypotheses separately from the methodology and to explicitly justify them in the light of the literature review.

The hypotheses were added directly to the literature review.

 Methodology

If I understand well the regressions used to test H2 and H4 did not include any control variable. I suggest to include other regional characteristics in the equation (such as regional GDP per capita and unemployment rate)

Thank you for your creative approach to the article. It is certainly an interesting look at further research. In this article, we only examined profitability and sales from the perspective of various factors. The problem of examining the relationship between GDP per capita and municipal companies is that GDP per capita in Slovakia is reported with a two-year delay, which could significantly skew the final results.

Conclusions

I suggest to derive some policy implication from your findings

At the conclusion of the article are added proposals for streamlining business through municipal firms.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for having given me the opportunity to read the revised version of the paper. 

I still have some concerns about the hypotheses.  What are the  achievements of the literature that underpin your choice to select region, number of employees, municipality size, and longevity as identification factors for firms' profitability and sales volume.

As far as Conclusions are concerned I suggest to dedicate a paragraph to other possible identification factors to be explored by future contributions, since you rejected all the research hypoheses.   

Moreover I suggest to create a specific Section titled "Literature Review" after the Introduction

A thorough English proof-reading is still necessary

Author Response

Thank you very much for revising the article.

I still have some concerns about the hypotheses.  What are the  achievements of the literature that underpin your choice to select region, number of employees, municipality size, and longevity as identification factors for firms' profitability and sales volume.

This topic is very specific and very few authors address it. For this reason, we also wanted to contribute to the expansion of research in this area with our article. Nevertheless, we managed to supplement the literary background with other authors who deal with the issue.

As far as Conclusions are concerned I suggest to dedicate a paragraph to other possible identification factors to be explored by future contributions, since you rejected all the research hypoheses.  

In the conclusion, other possibilities of factors were added, which could be evaluated in relation to municipal firms in the future.

Moreover I suggest to create a specific Section titled "Literature Review" after the Introduction

A section ”Theoretical background” has been added.

A thorough English proof-reading is still necessary

An English revision of the text has been made.