The Effect of COVID-19 on Consumer Goods Sector Performance: The Role of Firm Characteristics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic discussed is important from the point of view of conducting further research on COVID-19, but this topic is currently becoming less and less attractive to readers.

The abstract lacks a precise presentation of the research problem and the hypothesis, which makes reading the text difficult. The summary should be shortened. Write precisely: the purpose of the research, research methods and tools, the research problem and hypothesis, and the main conclusion. The remaining things can be included in the introduction.

The literature regarding current research should be updated.

The tables do not include data sources.

the article should be edited and minor language corrections made

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion, and a paragraph that discusses the point has been added to the manuscript. We have also revised it according to the reviewer's recommendations.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper investigates an exciting topic. The article is very well structured. The authors clearly underline their objectives and their contributions. Moreover, they offer a well-documented justification of the employed variables.

Comments:

(1) The authors use an unbalanced panel data structure, and their estimation method is based on OLS technique with robust standard errors. They should include a section justifying this method's selection in the paper. Some specific statistical tests should be taken into account.

(2) It needs to be clarified. Please explain the statement:

“In this investigation, the year countries dummy represents distinct industries”

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion, and a paragraph that discusses the point has been added to the manuscript. We have also revised it according to the reviewer's recommendations.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The research article abstract provides a valuable overview of a study that examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firm performance in the consumer goods industry.

Research Scope and Data: The abstract clearly outlines the scope of the research, which is a comprehensive study covering 1491 companies across 79 countries from 2018 to 2022, using data from The Wall Street Journal database. This extensive dataset lends credibility to the study and allows for a global perspective on the pandemic's effects.

Methodology: The use of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) with robust standard errors is a common and well-established statistical method for analyzing the impact of variables on firm performance. However, it's essential to know more about the variables included in the model, their operationalization, and potential limitations of this approach. A critical review should ideally assess the appropriateness of the statistical methods and data analysis techniques used. Also I would like to see other measures of performance rather than using ROA only. I would also like to see the results using GMM and Fixed Effects.

Literature Review: The literature review provides an extensive but unstructured compilation of studies examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firm performance across various sectors. While offering a broad overview of research in this field, the review lacks cohesion and critical analysis. It presents an overwhelming number of citations without clear organization or synthesis, making it challenging for readers to navigate and discern trends or gaps in the literature. The review would benefit from improved structure, analysis, and a more focused selection of studies to enhance readability and offer fresh insights into this important topic.

Conclusion: The conclusion should be revised after considering the other methods I mentioned in the methodology section, and after using other proxies for performance. 

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the suggestion, and a paragraph that discusses the point has been added to the manuscript. We have also revised it according to the reviewer's recommendations.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thanks for incorporating my previous comments in the paper.