Influence of Clean Energy and Financial Structure on China’s Provincial Carbon Emission Efficiency—Empirical Analysis Based on Spatial Spillover Effects

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper investigates the impacts of clean energy and financial structure on China's carbon emission efficiency by using panel data of 30 provinces from 2000–2019. The paper is quite interesting and well-organized. Some minor comments and suggestions are provided as follows:

1) Why do you consider clean energy and financial structure together in the introduction? And why do you put clean energy, financial structure, and CEE into a single framework? Some more detailed motivations should be added. 

2) Lines 66-67, "On one hand, [...]". But it seems that there is no "on the other hand, [...]". Please keep consistency and coherence in writing.

3) Models 3-5, please check whether the objective functions are correct.

4) Line 321, please add the equations for calculating the spatial weight matrix W.

5) In section 5.3, it would be better to consider the subgroup-based regression analysis (e.g., three subgroups: eastern China, western China, and central China) and discuss the regional heterogeneity. 

6) In the discussion, it is a lack of comparison with existing literature. Please add it.

7) The policy implications need to be concise.

8) Line 11, two "abstract" in the beginning. Remove one of them.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

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Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors could better explain contributions to the State of the Art, improve technical English. 

Author Response

Comment: Authors could better explain contributions to the State of the Art, improve technical English.

Response: Thank you for your advice, we have revised the whole manuscript carefully to avoid language errors. In addition, we have consulted a professional language-editing service and asked several colleagues who are native English speakers to check the English. We believe that the language is now acceptable for the review process.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

This revised manuscript has been improved sufficiently to be accepted.