China’s Pathway to a Low Carbon Economy: Exploring the Influence of Urbanization on Environmental Sustainability in the Digital Era
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript presents an interesting study of the impact of ICT and urbanization on environmental sustainability in China by using the novel QARDL method. The results of the QARDL model state the negative and significant impact of ICT on CO2 emissions in China at all quantiles, implying that an increase in ICT proved to be an important factor in improving environmental quality. Furthermore, the results are well presented and the conclusions are relevant for the sustainability community. However, there are some aspects of the text that I believe should be addressed by the authors before publication. Similarly, the text needs editing to correct typographical, grammatical and spelling mistakes.
11. Please correct the CO2 throughout the manuscript
22. Please check abbreviations such as ICT, ARDL, QARDL, CO2, PMG, OECD, etc that should be written in full and its abbreviation at first appearance, then followed by abbreviated form throughout the manuscript.
33. The author need to revise the abstract and make it more clear and crisp by adding background and one policy implication.
44. Please explain the reasons why this topic be investigated?
55. What are your contributions to the literature? What are your differentials from the previous studies? You should answer all these questions in end paragraph of this section.
66. You should comprehensively give information about the aim of this study.
77. Furthermore, in the last paragraph, you should present sections of your study.
88. In Introduction and Data sections, you should give detailed information the reason why data covers the period 1995-2020. I couldn't find any information. Furthermore, the dataset is too small and old. You should expand the time range of the dataset.
99. Please consider merit of QARDL method in model section.
110. You should comparatively discuss your findings with the results in the empirical literature.
111. Some main findings (e.g., smart urbanization) should be explained in detailed.
112. Add future research directions and limitations of the study in the conclusion section.
113. Finally, review the English language and correct grammar and spelling errors.
Author Response
1 Please correct the CO2 throughout the manuscript
Reply: This mistake is corrected. Thank you!
2 Please check abbreviations such as ICT, ARDL, QARDL, CO2, PMG, OECD, etc that should be written in full and its abbreviation at first appearance, then followed by abbreviated form throughout the manuscript.
Reply: Thanks a lot for your positive comments. Abbreviation explanations are added to the manuscript.
3 The author need to revise the abstract and make it more clear and crisp by adding background and one policy implication.
Reply: We have revised and improved the abstract of the study by adding background and policy implications.
4 Please explain the reasons why this topic be investigated?
Reply: We have added study justification and importance in the introduction selection.
5 What are your contributions to the literature? What are your differentials from the previous studies? You should answer all these questions in end paragraph of this section.
Reply: The contribution of this study is discussed. The motivation and need for the study are also provided in the introduction section. The gap of study is also added.
6 You should comprehensively give information about the aim of this study.
Reply: The study explains the aim of this study in the revised introduction.
7 Furthermore, in the last paragraph, you should present sections of your study.
Reply: We have added the organization of study at end of the introduction section.
8 In Introduction and Data sections, you should give detailed information the reason why data covers the period 1995-2020. I couldn't find any information. Furthermore, the dataset is too small and old. You should expand the time range of the dataset.
Reply: The reasons for time period selection are added in the data section of the revised manuscript. The justification of the method is also added.
9 Please consider merit of QARDL method in model section.
Reply: Justification of the methodology is added in the model section. The merits of econometric methods are also discussed in the model section.
- You should comparatively discuss your findings with the results in the empirical literature.
Reply: The results are compared with other similar studies in the revised manuscript. The revised discussion is now very strongly linked with the literature.
- Some main findings (e.g., smart urbanization) should be explained in detailed.
Reply: The research findings of urbanization are enriched and carefully discussed in a simple way.
- Add future research directions and limitations of the study in the conclusion section.
Reply: The conclusion is updated for the study in the revised manuscript by adding limitations and future directions.
- Finally, review the English language and correct grammar and spelling errors.
Reply: In this new version, we have carefully revised the language of the manuscript, and believe this new version is typos-free and more readable.
Reviewer 2 Report
# General Comments:
This study estimates the impact of ICT and urbanization on environmental sustainability in China using the novel QARDL method, by assembled annual data for the period 1995-2020.
Overall, I think this research topic is meaningful and the manuscript has a certain workload. Below I list a few comments for your reference.
# 1. According to the title of your manuscript, you should be studying the impact of Smart Urbanization(URB) on green sustainability, but you don’t. The title of the manuscript should be highly consistent with the content of your research. It is recommended to revise the title or focus the research content on the topic.
# 2. Line 92~107, you don’t have a clear statement of the manuscript’s contribution, which is hard to convince the reader.
# 3. The second part of the “Literature review” is unsatisfactory. You should not simply list the literature. You need to further summarize and discuss the existing literature.
# 4. Line 215~216, for the smart urbanization (URB) measure, you take “the urban population as % of total population”, which is unsupported. “The urban population as % of total population” should be a simple measure of urbanization, not URB.
Author Response
# 1. According to the title of your manuscript, you should be studying the impact of Smart Urbanization(URB) on green sustainability, but you don’t. The title of the manuscript should be highly consistent with the content of your research. It is recommended to revise the title or focus the research content on the topic.
Reply: This mistake is corrected. Thank you! The topic is revised as: China's Pathway to a Low Carbon Economy: Exploring the Influence of Urbanization on Environmental Sustainability in the Digital Era
# 2. Line 92~107, you don’t have a clear statement of the manuscript’s contribution, which is hard to convince the reader.
Reply: The study explains the gaps and contributions in the revised introduction. The study has also added the novelty of the paper.
# 3. The second part of the “Literature review” is unsatisfactory. You should not simply list the literature. You need to further summarize and discuss the existing literature.
Reply: The introduction and literature review sections are separated. The literature review is improved and some recent studies are also included in the literature section. The summary of the literature is also reported in the revised manuscript.
# 4. Line 215~216, for the smart urbanization (URB) measure, you take “the urban population as % of total population”, which is unsupported. “The urban population as % of total population” should be a simple measure of urbanization, not URB.
Reply: Agreed, this mistake is corrected. Thank you!
Reviewer 3 Report
The article have potential to be published however there seem to be a fundamental flaw in term of construction of variables both dependent and independent. Co2 emission cannot be a good measure of environment sustainability , rather variables like expenditure on renewable energy, consumption of renewable energy, sustainability innovation index are better measures, smart urbanization cannot be correctly determined by by % of population rather with technology determined variables can be better option like internet hour usage, percentage of GDP growth expenditure on R&D.
The authors need to adequately study literature who have worked on environmental sustainability using index.
GMM can be better technique than QARDL
Overall paper has unique concept but fundamental analysis flaws which can be addressed better
Author Response
The article have potential to be published however there seem to be a fundamental flaw in term of construction of variables both dependent and independent. Co2 emission cannot be a good measure of environment sustainability , rather variables like expenditure on renewable energy, consumption of renewable energy, sustainability innovation index are better measures, smart urbanization cannot be correctly determined by by % of population rather with technology determined variables can be better option like internet hour usage, percentage of GDP growth expenditure on R&D. The authors need to adequately study literature who have worked on environmental sustainability using index.
Reply:
Thank you for the valuable suggestions. Following the study of Ozturk & Ullah (2022), we have used CO2 emission as a measure of environmental sustainability.
We are also agreed on the second point, the urban population as % of total population” is a simple measure of urbanization, not smart urbanization.
We have acknowledged other points as the limitations of the study in the conclusion section.
GMM can be better technique than QARDL
Reply: This comment is addressed in the model section. Based on the literature, if the goal is to estimate the parameters of a wide range of models, including non-linear models, generalized method of moments (GMM) may be a better choice. If the goal is to analyze the short and long-run relationship between variables using a distributed lag model, and the dependent variable is not normally distributed, QARDL may be a better choice. Thus, our study employed the QARDL approach for short and long-run results, which is useful in a variety of research areas, such as economics, finance, and environmental studies. Thus QARDL estimator is a suitable technique for our empirical analysis.
Overall paper has unique concept but fundamental analysis flaws which can be addressed better
Reply: Thanks a lot for your positive comments. The above suggestions are addressed in the revised manuscript.
Reviewer 4 Report
This paper has the potential to be accepted, but in its current form, the paper has several shortcomings, as summarized as follows:
1) ICT is a well-known abbreviation but still required to be written as ‘Information and Communication Technology’ in the abstract. The introduction section of the research lacked a good literature review. Which gap in the literature does this study intend to fill, and what is the contribution of this QARDL method to the literature?
2) Tables 3 and 4 should be presented in the Results section, not in the Discussion section. Although the paper's structure was determined to be adequate and the study has good outcomes; more discussion is needed in the article. Please write a title for Figures 2 and 3.
3) A thorough grammatical check would be necessary to increase the paper's readability. Moderate English changes are required. (I recommend revising the whole article by a native English speaker or a translation service).
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Author Response
1) ICT is a well-known abbreviation but still required to be written as ‘Information and Communication Technology’ in the abstract. The introduction section of the research lacked a good literature review. Which gap in the literature does this study intend to fill, and what is the contribution of this QARDL method to the literature?
Reply: Thanks for correcting us. A full form of abbreviation is added. The literature review is improved and some recent studies are also included in the introduction and literature section. The gap of study is also added. The contribution of this study is also discussed and improved.
2) Tables 3 and 4 should be presented in the Results section, not in the Discussion section. Although the paper's structure was determined to be adequate and the study has good outcomes; more discussion is needed in the article. Please write a title for Figures 2 and 3.
Reply: Thanks for correcting us. Tables 3 and 4 are presented in the results section. The title of the figures are also added in the revised manuscript.
3) A thorough grammatical check would be necessary to increase the paper's readability. Moderate English changes are required. (I recommend revising the whole article by a native English speaker or a translation service).
Reply: In this new version, we have carefully revised the language of the manuscript, and believe this new version is typos-free and more readable. We have corrected all sentence structure mistakes in the manuscript from the native English speaker.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for the revision but I still think that the manuscript needs improvement to became readable.
Reviewer 3 Report
Author have addressed the queries
Reviewer 4 Report
The paper is generally well-written and makes a useful contribution. Overall English language and style are fine. However, Please use passive voice to report your results.
