Official Tenure, Fiscal Capacity, and PPP Withdrawal of Local Governments: Evidence from China’s PPP Project Platform
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The article explores the Public-Private Partnership investments in China, focusing on the role of local governments. The literature review is well constructed and presents relevant aspects regarding PPP investments. The methodology is suited for the researched problem and inovative regarding the used dataset and variables. The conclusions are supported by the results.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your guidance and advices on our manuscript.
We have carefully revised the manuscript according to the remarks made by the other reviewers and the editor, and we would like to resubmit it for your consideration.
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an interesting and useful paper, which provides insight on the use of PPPs in China.
p. 2 - The explanation of what PPPs are and why they are important is inadequate.
Tan & Zhao, The Rise of Public–Private Partnerships in China: An Effective Financing Approach for Infrastructure Investment?, has not been referenced. Same with Wang, Zhou, Xiong, and Yan (2019) which is related. Zhang, Zhang, Wu, & Wang (published in Sustainability) would be useful citation. A Reuters story from 2017 sounds an alarm that is useful for your paper (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-ppp/china-overhauls-2-69-trillion-public-private-projects-as-debt-fears-rise-idUSKBN1DH0DE).
The literature review is short and underdeveloped. What sprang to mind was Keynesianism, which speaks to both the involvement of government in spurring economic development, but also the hazards of too much of this involvement.
Figure 2 - is this your own work?
I don't find the part about Mayoral behavior especially surprising but it's worth noting and is explanatory.
Author Response
Thank you very much for your advices on our manuscript .We have carefully revised the manuscript according to your remarks.The point-by-point responses are listed below.
Point 1：P. 2 - The explanation of what PPPs are and why they are important is inadequate.
Response 1: Thank you very much for the literature guidance.
1) We have added important literatures you mentioned, please see Page2-3. They are [16], [17], and [35] respectively.
2) We have enriched the explanation on the role of government including Keynesianism, also moved several literatures at the beginning of Chapter 4 to Chapter 2, see Page3 the 3rd paragraph.
Point 2：Figure 2 - is this your own work?
Response 2: Yes. The third author made this figure through ArcGIS software. We add a note of the data source below the graph. Thank you for your constructive comments.
Point 3：I don't find the part about Mayoral behavior especially surprising but it's worth noting and is explanatory.
Response 3: Thank you for your constructive comments. What surprises us is Secretary behavior is not significant affecting on over-investment in PPPs. In the revised manuscript, we have modified the explanation of Mayoral behavior in the Section 6 of conclusion, please see Page 13-14.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
