Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

                                                                                                            Dated: 25-02-2022

MS_Sustainability-1621804

 

 

Title: River Chief System, Emission Abatement and Firm Profits: Evidence from China’s Polluting Firms

 

Dear Sir,

The work is interesting and well structured; Kindly see the comments list.

List of comments

 

• The abstract and conclusion section should be revised with major findings, including numeric values.
• Keywords should be alphabetically arranged, and the first letter in capital.
• However, the highly…………………. reduce water pollution. Add the relevant citation.
• We have four main findings…………………….. mainly caused by heavily-polluting firms……………………….. Add the relevant citation.
• Kahn el al. (2015); correct it as Kahn et al. (2015)
• Please check the citation and references format, and it should be as per the journal guidelines.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

• We want to thank the reviewer for giving insightful suggestions.

• As the reviewer suggested, we have added major conclusions with numbers in the abstract and the conclusion.

   Abstract: “First, ...by 3.7 percent...”.

“On the other hand,..., by 3.1 percent”.

 “Third,...by 5.6 percent”. (This whole sentence is newly added as one major conclusion”.

  

  Conclusion: A few sentences have been rewritten in the first paragraph to incorporate the numbers.

            “We find that,...by 6.3 percent...”

            “After implementation,..., by 3.2 percent,...”

            “Across enterprise ownership,..., by 4.4 percent, ..., by 6.8 percent,...”

 

            Second paragraph:

            “ Interestingly, ...by 6.1 percent,..., by 5.1 percent”

 

 

• Keywords are now listed alphabetically, with the first letter in capital.

 

• All reference citations are now in ACS layout style with numerical order inside brackets [].

Reviewer 2 Report

The study is consistent, robust, and suitable for publication in this important journal.

Author Response

We want to thank the reviewer for giving insightful suggestions.

 

• All reference citations are now in ACS layout style with numerical order inside brackets [].

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear authors,
Here are some tips to improve your work:
- In the abstract, indicate the acronym (RCS) in brackets immediately after the explanation "river chief system";
- Specify the acronym DID model;
- Correct the numbering of the caption of figure 1 and 2;
- Use the IEEE notation to insert refences within the text (i.e. [1]);
- It is good practice to indicate the titles of the paragraphs as indicated in the main structure. In this regard, I suggest you use the journal template.
- Describe table 2 better as only the RCS variable is commented on and it is not clear what the other variables are used for.
- On page 7, some terms of equation 2 have not been explicitly stated.
- On page 9, rather than listing the industries as a footnote, I suggest you bring them back to the table.
- On page 11, what does the notation "(1)" refer to?

Author Response

 We  want to thank the reviewer for giving insightful suggestions.

• The acronyms RCS have been indicated

 

• The acronyms DID have been specified

 

• The numbering of the caption of figure 1 and 2 has been corrected.

 

• All reference citations are now in ACS layout style with numerical order inside brackets [].

 

• The other control variables have been added to table 2. We also add a new sentence to show that their signs are consistent with the economic intuition at the end of the first paragraph on page 8.

 

• We have adjusted the title of three sections (section 2, 3 and 4) as the journal’s template suggests.

 

• Page 7: missing terms of equation 2 havebeen explicitly stated.

 

• The industries are now listed in the new table 3 on page 10.

 

• Page 12 (the previous page 11): regression model (1), refers to the specification (1) on page 5.