A Bibliometric and Literature Review: Alignment of Green Finance and Carbon Trading

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Even though the article deals with an interesting and relevant topic, there are some recommendations for improvement. 

The abstract. The problem of the research should be specified shortly.

The introduction has to represent the research's main concept, topicality, problem, aim, objectives and limitations. At the moment, an introduction represents a short theoretical literature overview and is even divided into subchapters. 

The part of the theoretical literature analysis needs to be included. It should be separate from the introduction. The research needs to be included in deep and new literature (scientific literature from the last five years) review. By doing it, the topicality and relevance of the research could be justified. Moreover, the research problem has to be identified. 

The methodology. The first time the definition is used, the abbreviation should be provided. Later on, only the abbreviation should be used. Line [148] only abbreviation should be used. 

Figure 1 is very welcome, but consider explicitly combining it with other sources. For example, ESG (environmental, social and governance) is a top priority followed by many companies, and in this figure, the aspect of governance is missing. 

Figure 2 is essential and helps to understand the whole research scheme. Well done. Consider providing some comments after figure 2 to avoid the gap before the next subchapter. 

The results. The results are presented precisely and logically in line with the research. Still, the results presented in Fig. 3 and 4 raise doubts about whether it is imperative to examine such aspects and what kind of contribution do they make to the research problem. 

The results in Table 1 summarise countries’ contributions to research. Whether the population of the given countries was estimated? Because it is obvious that the most populous countries will have the highest number of publications. 

The obtained results have no scientific weight and do not correspond to the main aim of the paper - This paper aims to review literature that discusses the extent to which green finance or sustainable finance has been a potential factor to speed up the implementation of cap-and-trade (carbon trading). The literature review is ultimately aimed at identifying the lack of information on how green finance can take place to support the carbon market. 

Conclusions should be expanded and presented according to the results of the research. The recommendations for further research would be very welcome.

References. 

The list of references ought to be longer. It has a direct correlation to the additional part of the literature analysis. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I am glad to see a nice, well-structured, and interesting paper. Some minor comments that I have and propose to the authors to take into account are as follows:

- Authors should shorten the abstract. it is very long.
- The contribution of the paper is very weak. Authors should expand it and highlight it as it is very important.
- Authors should explain the reasons that the research period was limited to 2014.  

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you very much for your manuscript that I enjoyed reading a lot. The paper is in good shape, I have one bigger issue and several smaller one.

Bigger issue: Section 2.3 presents complex qualitative methodology, but I am not sure where the results of the qualitative analyses were presented. It seems that the review in its present form is based on quantitative data.

Smaller issues:

·      Abstract should include information about the results of the analysis.

·      Sources on line 47 are written differently, not according to journal’s rules, also line 158.

·      Introduction is very long and has two sub-sections, which is not really typical for introduction. It discusses research design of the paper only in one very short paragraph (lines 119-122) and the last paragraph discusses possible audience, which is also not typical for a paper. I guess this last part of the introduction would be better at the end of the paper revised to policy implications.

·      I think this is not fully correct: “Scopus indexed 25,000 active articles from 7,000 publishers” (lines 239-240). Was it supposed to be journals?

·      Figure 2: There seems to be some information missing between last and next-to last step as in the former there are 494 sources from which 15 and 6 sources are excluded and then in the last step there are 289 sources. The numbers do not add-up here.

·      Some of the figures don’t look their best, maybe they can be a bit improved (fig.3 and 4 are missing line on the top, for example)

·      Conclusion is very short and would benefit from more thorough description of the results

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The paper is corrected and reorganized, with respect to all comments, except for this comment - The part of the theoretical literature analysis needs to be included. It should be separate from the introduction.