Does Retirement Affect Household Energy Consumption Structure? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study studied the impact of retirement on household energy consumption structure. Some comments need to be revised.

1 what are the innovation of this study?

2 why did the authors select the period from 2002 to 2009?

3 why did the authors adopt the RDD method?

4 how do you ensure the reliability of the results?

5 what are the practical significance of this study?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Congratulations on your efforts to prepare these important econometric analysis on energy consumption and retirement relationship. This manuscript seems like a good study in terms of the analyses it contains and its structure and fits well with the aims and scope of the journal. However, there are some minor issues to be revised before a publication decision. Here are my suggestions:

-   In line 75, CO2 symbol needs revision.

- In line 104, what is the meaning of RD design? Is it the same with RDD you mentioned before in text?

- It is not clear for a reader to understand OLS in line 149 or 2SLS in line 164. Explanations for abbrevations must be given in their first usage in text.

- Results of the analyses must be discussed in more detail. They seem very limited in current form.

- More suggestions for further research could be provided.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript deals with how retirement and population aging affect the household energy consumption structure in China. The work can be interesting for policymakers, professionals and scientists dealing with energy markets. In my opinion scientific contribution of this paper is low. Energy writing is at a high level. Reviewer suggestions are:

 

• provide some absolute/relative values of the indirect energy decrease and direct energy  increase after the retirement in the abstract and conclusion
• rewrite the conclusion in such a way as to throw out referencing. For scientific papers it is not common to use references in the conclusion
• Abstract could be improved with some numerical data obtained from the research.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Article entitled: "Does Retirement Affect Household Energy Consumption Structure?" Evidence from a Regression Riscontinuity Resign" is an article on a socio-environmental topic that uses regression analysis and other analyzes to examine the relationship between retirement and household energy consumption.

- I already have my first reservation about the title of the article, which I do not understand. What is meant by Riscontinuity Resign? Did the authors mean Discontinuity Design?? This fact makes me want to reject the article!

- In the Abstract section, I am missing a brief overview of the achieved results in units of measure, percentages, etc.

- The text of the articles contains a number of abbreviations that are not properly explained. If an abbreviation appears in the text for the first time, it is absolutely necessary to explain it, and if there are a large number of abbreviations, it is advisable to add their summary separately.

- Tables and graphs do not have sources listed below them. Even if it is likely that the graph is the author's work, credit must be given as the source of one's own creation.

- I perceive the section Conclusions and policy implications as the weakest part, which is directly unsatisfactory. Absolutely, here, or in a separate section, I lack a comparison with other works in the field, which are mainly from Japan, but also China, as the authors themselves mention.

- I absolutely do not agree with naive advice and recommendations in the area of ​​government policy, which are absolutely not based on the results of the research carried out.

SPECIFICALLY: "The government should produce more clean energy for the consumption of pensioners' housing..." How would the authors imagine it? How should the government allocate this energy for pensioners? It sounds paradoxical!

Based on their results, the authors advise to strengthen the content of clean energy in the energy mix! ... Not like this, these are general Energy Policy principles that are not based on the authors' research. Yes, every government builds its energy influence and tries to increase the share of clean energies. However, this has no connection with the research results presented here.

As well as the recommendation to promote the use of renewable energy sources.. Yes, this is also a tool, it specifically belongs to the environmental education of the population, but how can it be used here? Do the authors think retirees will choose only clean energy from the grid? These recommendations are absurd and not based on research. It makes the reviewer think about what the research was for and what it found...

- On the contrary, I completely lack the determination of research goals and tasks in the introduction section and a very clear evaluation of the results achieved in the Conclusion section, specifically in numbers, percentages and units of measurement, and further evaluation of the assigned research tasks, clearly, for the 1st, for the 2nd, etc. .

To summarize all this, I will not dismiss this article just because it has a rather interesting focus and subject of research and a rather valuable analysis.

However, I can't imagine it being published in this form.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The paper is improved enough to be published in Sustainability.

I recomend to make another english proofreading.