Review Reports - The Impact and Mechanism of the Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Rural Residents’ Income: A Case Study of China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article investigates how China’s Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy (NFLBP) has affected rural residents’ incomes between 2005–2022. Using provincial panel data and a multi-period DID (difference-in-differences) model.

Major corrections

1. The study acknowledges delay but does not deeply explore the socio-economic costs borne by farmers in this transition period.

2. Transfer income” is treated in aggregate; more detailed breakdown (e.g., subsidies vs. compensation) could refine insights.

3. Cultural, demographic, and migration factors may also influence rural incomes but are not modeled.

4. Results are China-specific, and extrapolating to other forest-rich developing countries may be limited without considering institutional contexts.

5. While heterogeneity is addressed, the negative coefficient in carbon trading pilot areas could have been unpacked more fully (e.g., market distortions or overlapping policies).

6. The authors mention performing parallel trend tests but only briefly describe results—more clarity or visual graphs would strengthen validity.

7. The claim that “NFLBP is less effective in carbon trading pilot areas” is stated but not fully explained; could be misinterpreted without deeper discussion.

8. Transfer income” is used but not clearly defined (does it include subsidies, pensions, ecological compensation separately?).

Other corrections

1. Some sentences are overly long and could be broken down for clarity. Example: “The Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy (NFLBP) is an important measure implemented by China to promote ecological civilization construction.”

Could be simplified to:
“The NFLBP is a key policy in China’s ecological civilization efforts.

2. Repeated use of “significantly” and “obviously” in results sections—tightening language would improve readability.

3. In some sections, tables and figure references are not uniformly formatted (e.g., “Table 2” vs. “Tab.2”).

4. Some spacing before/after parentheses is inconsistent.

5. Some references use inconsistent styles (e.g., missing page numbers, inconsistent DOI formatting). Example: A few in-text citations lack years in parentheses.

Author Response

Dear Editor and Reviewer:
We sincerely thank you for taking the time to review our paper, 'The Impact and Mechanism of the Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Rural Residents' Income: A Case Study of China,' amidst your busy schedule, and for giving us the opportunity to revise the manuscript. We greatly appreciate and value your valuable suggestions and feedback and have made every effort to think about solutions, making detailed revisions and reorganizing. For the convenience of reviewers' review, the modified content is marked in red font in the revised manuscript. Please see the attachment for details.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors!

Thank you for your submitted manuscript. This paper discusses selected aspects of the policy mechanism prohibiting the logging of natural forests. A multifactorial analysis of income differences among rural residents as a result of this policy is also planned.

First of all, it should be pointed out that the topic is important, in the journal's line. In general, the study was prepared correctly: substantively and methodically. However, I would like to draw your attention to the following issues that require clarification, supplementation or improvement:

In my opinion, the literature review should justify the choice of the research problem and its context. This part needs to be supplemented, precisely in relation to the title objective (hypothesis) of the article. This is particularly true with regard to international literature, which is scarce in the article (state of the art). The problem discussed by the authors does not only exist in China, is it?
The authors intended to indicate the impact – and therefore not only the cause-and-effect relationship, but also the change in the values (factor) studied as a result of the interaction of the selected variable. It also concerns methods of analysis.
It also seems that the choice of the behavioural risk theory of farmers (Ellis, 1993) as a theoretical background is insufficient. Forest management is a complex issue: institutional, natural, legal, environmental and ecological – and ultimately business-related.
Three valid hypotheses were put forward. However, did each of them receive an adequate scenario answering the research question hidden in that hypothesis? And then, was this scenario implemented step by step so that an external researcher could repeat the same journey as the data analyst? Finally, were satisfactory answers given to each of these research questions in the summary?
I deliberately bring up these hypotheses once again:

[H1]: The natural forest logging ban policy is conducive to increasing rural residents' income (which means acceptance of the verified policy).

[H2]: The natural forest logging ban policy can increase rural residents' income through the non-agricultural employment effect (which is not only an acceptance of the verified policy but also an indication of added value: profitable employment outside agriculture – and all this must be assessed).

[H3]: The natural forest logging ban policy can increase rural residents’ income through the investment effect of forest ecological protection (and here, in addition, the ecological effect is combined as a motivating factor for ‘profitable investments’ by farmers - outside forestry).

Were the results of the verification of each hypothesis discussed separately? Are the conclusions in the summary directly related to these hypotheses? Finally, is there a reference to the research problem mentioned in the title, to this “ impact”?

The verification of factors in the regression analysis formula is very interesting. However, have the obtained parameters, including the value of the coefficient of determination R², been sufficiently commented on?
Please also note that the iThenticate report shows a fairly high degree of similarity. Please review it and limit unnecessary repetitions (citations can also be adjusted rather than copied).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Finally, I recommend reviewing the correctness of the English language. It is worth formulating observations in simple, precise sentences. Where sentence structures are very complex, understanding becomes ambiguous, unclear. It is advisable to cooperate with a native speaker.

I encourage you to have your paper revised and improved, Good luck!

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I was asked to review the article entitled "The Impact and Mechanism of the Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Rural Residents' Income: A multi-period difference-in-differences analysis"

The article is quite interesting and presents a procedure for protecting forest areas similar to those implemented in other areas of the world.
The article is written in an obvious and extremely attractive artistic way, but from the point of view of the scientific exposition, there are elements that should be presented more eloquently.
In terms of the concepts used, this article would be more appropriate for an economics or business models journal. Essentially, it is a study based on data taken from

Point observations:
1. I think that section 2 should include a map with the 30 areas considered in this study, data from the national statistical system were used.
2. I also think that the exposition using this constructed multi-period difference-in-differences model and a mediation effect model, and conducted the empirical study on the impact of the natural forest logging ban policy on rural residents' income and its internal mechanisms , is apparently a forced approach.

3. in principle, if we have a study that includes several variables, descriptive statistics POST and BEFORE should be included (with possible evaluation of differences to highlight significant changes). In table 2, some global variables are presented, without being exposed to a dynamic or comparative.
4. also in principle, if one wants to approach a regression model - see equation (1), one should necessarily evaluate the significance of the input variables considered. There are enough evaluation methods - for example PCA, FA, etc.
5. It is proposed, based on the interpolation equation (1), a constructed the following mediation effect model based on model (1) given by expression (2).

6. the section that intrigued me the most is of course section 4.1. Benchmark Regression Results and respectively 4.3. Validity test of the model

a set of 8 variables are presented, the values for R-square are presented and some values are missing. There is no explanation for this situation

In principle, to highlight a difference, a simple graphic representation that includes the values of a control group and the values of a witness group, respectively, would have been extremely suggestive.

I would recommend rewriting - at least some sections of this article, to make it clearer to follow and analyze.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

IMMEDIATE IMPRESSION: Having read this manuscript, my understanding of this article is that it assesses the implementation of the natural forest logging ban policy on farmers’ production and lifestyles using panel data from 30 provinces in China. On the face of it, the manuscript has merits for publication on the grounds of its rigour in assessing 30 provinces in China, the depth of data used for the assessment, and the policy relevance of the subject addressed. The manuscript requires slight (minor) improvements in the following areas.

TITLE: The title “The Impact and Mechanism of the Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Rural Residents’ Income: A multi-period difference-in-differences analysis” is a little verbose and omits the core aspects of the manuscript’s content – the geographical context. I suspect that the authors focused on pushing the method used on the tile instead of the geographical context. For an international journal like this one, context matters because readers come from different parts of the world. A title such as “Impact of Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Income: A multi-period difference-in-differences analysis of rural China” (or something in that form) would have been less verbose, more direct and comprehensible.

ABSTRACT: This is well written and presented. However, I have a BIG QUESTION. If China has 22 or 23 provinces, why does this manuscript assess 30 provinces?

INTRODUCTION: This part is well written. However, it would be helpful to add a small last paragraph in the intro that presents the section-by-section guide of the manuscript. This will enable a potential reader to grasp the overview of the manuscript from reading the introduction. One sentence each on the sections would do it.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND RESULTS: The section on “Research Design” is well written. However, the caption could be changed or re-captioned as “Methodology” to provide a focus on its content, meaning it presents the design, procedure, models and methods. The results are well presented.

CONCLUSION: This part is well written but poorly presented. The authors could merge and discuss the entire content without separating it (but I am not insisting). If they sectionalise it (as it is now), they do not have to number the paragraphs. The best way to write it is as a narrative section without applying numbering to the paragraphs. The numbering makes this section appear as though the manuscript is a policy brief instead of a scientific research article.

OTHER ISSUES THAT COULD BE INTEGRATED IN THE DISCUSSION: I am not insisting on this, but I would like to bring it to the attention of the authors. This manuscript is about rural development from the perspective of the Natural Forest Logging Ban policy in China. Yet in the entire manuscript, nothing is mentioned about “rural development” in China and how this study is linked to it. The Natural Forest Logging Ban policy is not working in isolation from rural development. This connection should have been made in the introduction, the literature and the policy implications of the study (conclusion).

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of English is good. However, the authors can always improve it during revision. I general do not expect this manuscript to go for English editing.

Author Response

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have addressed most of my comments but because they did not provide a response to my queries, it is difficult to grasp their justifications for not following through with few of the recommendations. However, I suggest further minor changes to structure.

Section 5 is on "conclusion and discussion" while section 6 is on "policy implications." A conclusion should come last (logically and scientifically speaking). There should be no other section after a conclusion. Hence the section on "policy implications should either have been part of the "Conclusion and discussion" or presented within a "discussion" section that is separated from "conclusion" section.

The authors need to address this structural concern - there should e no other separate section after the conclusion.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

We sincerely thank you for taking the time to review our paper, 'The Impact and Mechanism of the Natural Forest Logging Ban Policy on Rural Residents' Income: A Case Study of China', amidst your busy schedule, and for allowing us to revise the manuscript again.

This paper is structured as follows. Section Two introduces the institutional background and theoretical assumptions concerning the impact of the NFLBP on rural residents’ income. Section Three describes the research methodology, including model setup, variable construction, and data collection. Section Four reports the empirical results and investigates the underlying channels of policy effects. Section Five situates the findings within existing literature and policy practices. Section Six provides the key conclusions.

Thank you again for your valuable guidance on this manuscript. We sincerely hope that the revised manuscript can meet the review requirements. Finally, I sincerely wish you good health, smooth work, and a happy life!

Best regards,