Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Table 3 should be whole on one page

Tables lacking sources

The strong points of the paper are the broad literature and used methods

Author Response

1. Is the research design appropriate? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Thank you very much for your valuable suggestions to improve this manuscript. We have now updated the literature review section accordingly.

2. Are the methods adequately described? – Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated accordingly.

3. Table 3 should be whole on one page

Ans.) We are sorry for the inconvenience. We have now improved it as suggested.

4. Tables lacking sources

Ans.) Thank you for indicating this. The Tables have the authors' compilation as the source. We have now updated it.

5. The strong points of the paper are the broad literature and used methods

Ans.) Thank you very much for your appreciation.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

Your research is interesting and I do not have any major sugestions to improve it. The paper is very well structured and all its components are clear. But, I have one curiosity: what countries were included in the sample? There is no information in the paper about them, maybe a note should be added. 

Author Response

1. What countries were included in the sample? There is no information in the paper about them, maybe a note should be added.

Ans.) We have now added Table A in appendix. It has the list of sample countries.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

I am glad to review your study.

 

- The study finds that environmental efficiency has a negative impact on GDP per capita for low and moderate levels of GDP per capita, but no impact for high levels of GDP per capita. It also finds that developed countries and democracies moderate this impact differently.

 

- The study provides a novel perspective on the financial materiality of environmental concerns and the role of country characteristics in shaping this relationship. It uses robust statistical methods and a large sample of countries to test its hypotheses.

 

Suggestions for future studies:

 

* The selection of countries and the period could influence the results.

It would be interesting to see if the findings hold for different samples or periods.

 

* The measurement of variables could affect the results.

There are multiple ways to measure environmental efficiency and economic development, and the choice of measure could influence the findings.

 

* The moderating variables could be improved.

Other factors might moderate environmental efficiency's impact on economic development, such as institutional quality, trade openness, or innovation.

 

* The policy implications could be challenging

The study suggests that environmental concerns should be considered in policymaking and that developed countries should bear a larger share of the cost of environmental protection. However, implementing such policies could face various political, economic, and social obstacles.

The exposition of the study is good.

Author Response

1. Is the research design appropriate? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated accordingly

2. Are the methods adequately described? – Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated accordingly

3. The study finds that environmental efficiency has a negative impact on GDP per capita for low and moderate levels of GDP per capita, but no impact for high levels of GDP per capita. It also finds that developed countries and democracies moderate this impact differently.

Ans.) Yes

4. The study provides a novel perspective on the financial materiality of environmental concerns and the role of country characteristics in shaping this relationship. It uses robust statistical methods and a large sample of countries to test its hypotheses.

Ans.) Thank you very much for your appreciation.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper is interesting and well-prepared. It discusses the impact of environmental efficiency on economic growth (measured by GDPC).

I think that the title of the paper does not fully correspond with its scope. It is about the impact of environmental concerns on the growth of nations - sustainability is a much broader concept. 

My suggestion is to reorganize the text into the proper sections (Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology - Methods and Data, Results, Discussion, Conclusions,..). For example, Figure 1. Conceptual model, Table 1 with variables - are the methodical assumption of the research.

Authors wrote (page 2): SDGs are 17 goals and 169 targets given by United Nations, mainly focusing on social and environmental targets (Hák et al., 2016). They are not in any way clubbed with the growth and development of the nations - it is not true, Goal 8 relates directly to economic growth and GDP.

Page 3: Why in the Introduction section, do Authors discuss research findings? "The findings of the current study have a few path-breaking implications. First, the negative association (for low and moderate GDPC nations) of environmental efficiency with the GDPC should be considered more seriously...." It should be included in the Discussion.

It is not clearly present how EEC and EEV were measured - only with CO2 emission? Please precise it. It should be also in Table 2 - summary statistics of input data included. Which year is presented in Table 2? What about statistics regarding changes in the analyzed period?

What unit is GDPC? US dollars? 

Author Response

1.Is the research design appropriate? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer. 

2. Are the methods adequately described? – Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated accordingly

3. I think that the title of the paper does not fully correspond with its scope. It is about the impact of environmental concerns on the growth of nations - sustainability is a much broader concept.

Ans.) Thank you for pointing this out. We have now updated the title as suggested by the reviewer. 

4. My suggestion is to reorganize the text into the proper sections (Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology - Methods and Data, Results, Discussion, Conclusions). For example, Figure 1. Conceptual model, Table 1 with variables - are the methodical assumption of the research.

Ans.) Updated accordingly. 

5. Authors wrote (page 2): SDGs are 17 goals and 169 targets given by United Nations, mainly focusing on social and environmental targets (Hák et al., 2016). They are not in any way clubbed with the growth and development of the nations - it is not true, Goal 8 relates directly to economic growth and GDP.

Ans.) We agree with you and we have now made the correction in the statement as per the reviewer's suggestion.

6. Page 3: Why in the Introduction section, do Authors discuss research findings? "The findings of the current study have a few path-breaking implications. First, the negative association (for low and moderate GDPC nations) of environmental efficiency with the GDPC should be considered more seriously...." It should be included in the Discussion.

Ans.) Thank you very much for suggesting this. We agree with you on this. We have given a detailed note on implications in discussion section. We have put this part in introduction as well to create the curiosity in reader to read this manuscript with interest. However, we have now updated the introduction as per the reviewer’s suggestion. 

7. It is not clearly present how EEC and EEV were measured - only with CO2 emission? Please precise it. It should be also in Table 2 - summary statistics of input data included. Which year is presented in Table 2? What about statistics regarding changes in the analyzed period?

Ans.) Thank you for pointing this out. We have now updated it in methodology section (section 3.5). Table 2 is also updated accordingly. Summary statistics is based on the data of whole sample period from 2011-2020 for 106 countries. 

8. What unit is GDPC? US dollars? 

Ans.) Yes, it is USD. Now have now updated it in Table 1.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 5 Report

1. The authors could restructure the abstract to reflect the JRFM style.

2. It is good for the authors to explore the issue and problem behind financial materiality for these countries. why does this study matter? The introduction focuses much on environmental sustainability.

3. Environmental efficiency is another big concept. How do that link to financial materiality?

4.  Sample countries - how to separate according to the categories?

5. I do not see the need of Tables 3 and 5

6. why adopt quantile estimation? and how to determine the quantile.

7. What the practical implication for this study? the impact on these selected countries?

Author Response

1. Does the introduction provide sufficient background and include all relevant references? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

2. Are all the cited references relevant to the research? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

3. Is the research design appropriate? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

4. Are the methods adequately described? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

5. Are the results clearly presented? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

6. Are the conclusions supported by the results? -Can be Improved.

Ans.) Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

7. The authors could restructure the abstract to reflect the JRFM style.

Ans.) Thank you very much for pointing this out.  Updated as suggested by the reviewer.

8. It is good for the authors to explore the issue and problem behind financial materiality for these countries. why does this study matter? The introduction focuses much on environmental sustainability.

Ans.) Updated in introduction as suggested by the reviewer.

9. Environmental efficiency is another big concept. How do that link to financial materiality?

Ans.) Updated in introduction  as suggested by the reviewer.

10. Sample countries - how to separate according to the categories?

Ans.) Updated Table 1 mentioning this point.

11. I do not see the need of Tables 3 and 5

Ans.) Thank you very much for suggesting this. Going through the related literature on same methodology like kanoujiya et al. (2022). We have found that Table is necessary to give empirical evidence on non-normality of data. Hence, I think it should be in manuscript. We also believe Table 5 should also be in manuscript to give stronger evidence on multicollinearity issues (Kanoujiya et al., 2022).

12. why adopt quantile estimation? and how to determine the quantile.

Ans.) We have followed standard quantiles of 25, 50, and 75 as followed in existing literature (Kanoujiya et al., 2022)

13. What the practical implication for this study? the impact on these selected countries?

Ans.) Thank you for highlighting this issue. We have now updated implications in discussion section, accordingly.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx