Determinants and Impacts of Financial Literacy in Cambodia and Viet Nam
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The introduction is well written and helps readers to understand what to expect. Data collection is well described.
However, the presentation of data and results in table format needs improvement as it is confusing to follow in places. It can be improved with some revision in presentation style and by simplifying the stats.
There is heavy reliance on the OECD data and lacks evidence of other sources being used/consulted. With some improvements/revision in the presentation of tables and figures and the results section, it can be a good paper.
Spell check/minor editing will improve the paper.
Author Response
Responses to Reviewer 1
We would like to thank you for your careful reading of our manuscript and all valuable comments. We have carefully considered the comments and addressed all of them accordingly. We have revised our data and analysis presentation to make them more concise and straight forward. Detailed responses are provided as follows. We hope that this revision will meet your expectations.
The introduction is well written and helps readers to understand what to expect. Data collection is well described.
Thanks very much.
However, the presentation of data and results in table format needs improvement as it is confusing to follow in places. It can be improved with some revision in presentation style and by simplifying the stats.
We have simplified the presentation in the following ways:
Section 4: Descriptive statistics
• We have deleted two figures to compare Cambodia and Viet Nam with other countries. The comparison with other countries in terms of financial literacy score and its three subcomponents is not our focus in this study.
• We have rewritten the differences in financial literacy scores and its three subcomponents, to make it clearer and more straightforward.
Section 5: Econometric results
• We only presented our preferred estimates for each of three financial literacy subcomponents (columns 4 and 6 in Table 4, 5 and 6 in the original submission). We merged these estimates into one single table, Table 4 (instead of three tables, Tables 4-6, as in the original submission). This helps to reduce the number of tables in this subsection (i.e. determinants of financial literacy) from 4 to 2. We correspondingly rewrote the estimated results.
• We re-worded section 5.2 “Effects of financial literacy on saving behavior” to make it clearer.
• We also presented our preferred OLS results for association between financial literacy and financial inclusion. To make it more compact, we merged with the table that presented IV estimation results. This reduced the number of tables in this sub-section (i.e. the effects of financial literacy on financial inclusion) from 2 to 1. We correspondingly re-wrote and re-worded the analysis.
There is heavy reliance on the OECD data and lacks evidence of other sources being used/consulted. With some improvements/revision in the presentation of tables and figures and the results section, it can be a good paper.
The paper is essentially an analysis of original survey data obtained by the authors using the OECD/INFE survey instrument. So we think it is appropriate to compare the data and results mainly with the OECD survey results of other countries.
Spell check/minor editing will improve the paper.
We have reviewed the whole text and made corrections where needed.
Reviewer 2 Report
This manuscript extends the literature on the determinants and impact of financial literacy in Cambodia and Viet Nam. The study uses the OECD/INFE survey.
On page 10 the sentence starting with “Thise with higher education also... is not complete.
The introduction is written well and some key literature is reviewed. Data collection is described well. The descriptive statistics section contains a lot of tables and figures which makes it difficult to follow. The econometric result section is also difficult to follow. The discussion is limited and does not include any reference to the literature other than the oecd. There are conclusions or implications of this research.
Author Response
We would like to thank you for your careful reading of our manuscript and all valuable comments. We have carefully considered the comments and addressed all of them accordingly. We have revised our data and analysis presentation to make them more concise and straight forward. Detailed responses are provided as follows. We hope that this revision will meet your expectations.
On page 10 the sentence starting with “Thise with higher education also... is not complete.
This paragraph was deleted to simplify the discussion.
The introduction is written well and some key literature is reviewed. Data collection is described well. The descriptive statistics section contains a lot of tables and figures which makes it difficult to follow. The econometric result section is also difficult to follow. The discussion is limited and does not include any reference to the literature other than the oecd. There are conclusions or implications of this research.
We have simplified the presentation in the following ways:
Section 4: Descriptive statistics
• We have deleted two figures to compare Cambodia and Viet Nam with other countries. The comparison with other countries in terms of financial literacy score and its three subcomponents is not our focus in this study.
• We have rewritten the differences in financial literacy scores and its three subcomponents, to make it clearer and more straightforward.
Section 5: Econometric results
• We only presented our preferred estimates for each of three financial literacy subcomponents (columns 4 and 6 in Table 4, 5 and 6 in the original submission). We merged these estimates into one single table, Table 4 (instead of three tables, Tables 4-6, as in the original submission). This helps to reduce the number of tables in this subsection (i.e. determinants of financial literacy) from 4 to 2. We correspondingly rewrote the estimated results.
• We re-worded section 5.2 “Effects of financial literacy on saving behavior” to make it clearer.
• We also presented our preferred OLS results for association between financial literacy and financial inclusion. To make it more compact, we merged with the table that presented IV estimation results. This reduced the number of tables in this sub-section (i.e. the effects of financial literacy on financial inclusion) from 2 to 1. We correspondingly re-wrote and re-worded the analysis.
We have added some references to non-OECD literature in the discussion section.
The implications are stated clearly in the last two paragraphs of the discussion section.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I am now happy for this paper to go ahead for publication.
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for attending to the suggested changes. All the best with your manuscript.
