Coordinated Development Relationship between Port Cluster and Its Hinterland Economic System Based on Improved Coupling Coordination Degree Model: Empirical Study from China’s Port Integration

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear editor(s),
Thanks for considering me as one of the reviewers for the manuscript. I have carefully checked the manuscript and suggest the acceptance of the manuscript with minor revision. My comments and suggestions are as follows:
The manuscript investigates the influence of port integration on the coordinated development relationship between the port cluster and its hinterland economic system with the appliance of the coupling coordination degree model. The topic is interesting and the findings are impressive, and the readability of the manuscript is fairly good. 
The manuscript can be improved further at least in these several aspects:
1. The review of literatures on the topic of China’s port integration should be added in order to present a better understanding of the empirical study in this manuscript.
2. Similar to suggestion 1, the port integration in China should be introduced with more details in the background of the empirical study.
3. The format in Table 1 and Table 2 should be adjusted in order to be consistent with each other.
4. Figure 2 (d) should be replotted in order to make it clearer.
5. I find that the authors choose the market concentration as one of the indicators for the construction of evaluation indicator system which is relatively unique, please explain the reason to choose this indicator.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

• Please be careful with the punctuation (s. review report attached)
• Try to use "subsystem" instead of "sub-system"
• Do references respect the APA form? Please try to use the software Endnote to better organize the references and respect the APA

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Point 1: Please be careful with the punctuation (s. review report attached)

Response 1: Our apologies for the oversight. Thank you for the correction. We have rectified these mistakes.

 

Point 2: Try to use "subsystem" instead of "sub-system"

Response 2: Thank you for the suggestion. We have revised the expression.

 

Point 3: Do references respect the APA form? Please try to use the software Endnote to better organize the references and respect the APA

Response 3: Thanks for your suggestion. We have used the software Endnote to organize the references (Lines 463-534 in the revised version).

 

Reviewer 3 Report

1. (Lines 186 – 190) It is recommended to explain the qualitative values of the parameters used in formulas (5) and (6)
2. A more detailed explanation of formulas (5) and (6) is recommended
3. (Lines 197 - 201) It is recommended to give clear values
4. The figures in the text (lines 154 - 162) and in Tables 1 and 2 do not match, the text or tables should be clarified
5. Fig. 2. The Y-axis values should be entered or explained in the text next to the figure
6. It is recommended to introduce an additional section “Discussions” with summary results and prospective studies

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

It is recommended to present the possibilities of practical application of the results in the conclusions.  

Author Response

Thanks for your suggestion. We have added the possibilities of practical application of the results in the conclusion part (Line 455-463 in the revised manuscript). Here is the added text:

“The results shed light on the phenomenon that the coordinated relationship between the integrated port cluster and its hinterland economic system would undergo a short period of deterioration and instability, which has practical relevance for the port cluster beginning to implement the port integration. Additionally, the results also give implications in terms of the choice of integration patterns for the port clusters which has not yet get into or just begun to experience the integration but hesitate over the relationship with its hinterland economy. Moreover, the method proposed in this paper contributes to providing a new quantitative analysis tool for evaluating the effect of port integration.”