Impact of Natural Disasters on Household Income and Expenditure Inequality in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of this paper is worthy of investigation, and the authors did a good job exploring the relationships between natural disasters and income/expenditure inequality. The analyses appeared rigorous, with baseline results, robustness checks, and heterogeneity analyses logically presented. 

I'm quite receptive to the results and discussion. Though still, one major concern is that "natural disasters" can include various kinds of disasters. While the authors acknowledged this point for future research, I still think the authors need to try addressing this point as much as possible at this stage. Perhaps consider introducing different regional dummies to control for the differences between different kinds of natural disasters, if the occurrence of natural disasters presents clear geographic patterns. 

The paper is well written. The flows run smoothly. 

Only one minor comment:

In the end of Section 2, "economically exploited" may not be a good choice of words. Try other expression(s). 

Author Response

Please see attached response letter. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors explore the causal relationship between natural disasters and household income and expenditure inequality in Chine over the 1998-2018 period. They use panel regression with fixed time and regional effects and conduct robustness checks by using alternative inequality metrics and alternative estimation techniques. They find that natural disasters worsen income inequality contemporarily and expenditure inequality with a one-year lag. These results are consistent across sub-samples, alternative inequality metrics and alternative estimation techniques.

The article is relevant and timely. The paper is straightforward and well-written. Methods are appropriate and are adequately described. However, I would like to know a bit more about the data on natural disasters. What kind of natural disasters are considered? I assume “individuals who have been physically injured or require immediate assistance as a result of the disaster” comprehend different levels of injury. What implications does this have on the analysis? I miss some discussion on this.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Very good manuscript that will be a valuable addition to the literature

please double-check typos.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. We have carefully checked and corrected typos in the revised manuscript.