Spatial Connectivity and Regional Economic Resilience in Turbulent Times

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

There are many publications in the world literature which present the results of research on the relationship between the variables characterizing economic development, social development, the situation on the labor market, the level of social and economic infrastructure, including the development of transport infrastructure, the standard of living or the quality of life of societies. The authors of the article raised a very important and interesting problem of spatial connectivity and its relationship with various economic and social indicators. The issue is all the more important because in the last two decades, countries have faced many crises that have had to be overcome, and the largest economic crisis associated with COVID-19 is still ongoing. The relationships between economic, social and infrastructural factors are not always obvious, therefore their strength, relationship and trends must be constantly analyzed.

The content of the article is understandable and logical. However, the authors could present the main goal more specifically, and above all list the specific goals of the study chronologically. There is also a lack of a clearly and comprehensively formulated and presented hypothesis at the beginning of the study. The methods are clearly and broadly defined. The authors described in detail and correctly the indicators they used for the study.

I believe that the literature items presented, to which the authors referred in presenting arguments for selecting indicators and then discussing the results, are convincing and balanced. However, the literature review in the introduction is too laconic and sparing. The overview part could be enriched and the results of research that were carried out in other countries mentioned in the introduction at different levels of NUTS-2 and NUTS-3 could be presented in more detail.

The results of the study are clearly presented, but again too sparingly. While the method used and the indicators taken into account are presented in greater detail in the methodological part, the results of the research already obtained are presented too laconically. The results should also be precisely described, e.g. which period they refer to. Why do the results refer to the period e.g. 2008-2015 or 2006, since we already have 2021 and access to data even from 2019? The indicators that are taken into account for the analysis of dependencies should always take into account the same objects (countries) and come from the same time period. This is not clearly explained in the article.

The literature cited in the article is broad and correct, I have no objections. The conclusions are supported by the results and the authors made an interesting discussion of the results.

In the abstract, the authors should add the years for which the indicators for the study were taken into account, carefully write down the research time periods (the time of the great recession and others), present the assumed hypothesis, precisely specify the main purpose of the study.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper deals with an important topic of research.

The analysis is well conducted, in overall terms.

My overall opinion is positive. I have, however, some concerns:

• the introduction does not provide, in my opinion, a clear motivation for the empirical exercise conducted in the study;
• The discussion of the empirical evidence must be revised, namely with a stronger link with previous studies on related topics.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf