The Impact of Accountability for Energy Efficiency Targets on Labor Demand of Enterprises: Evidence from China’s Top-1000 Energy-Saving Program
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe paper entitled "The Impact of Accountability for Energy Efficiency Targets on Labor Demand of Enterprises: Evidence from China’s Top-1000 Energy-saving Program" does exactly what it promises in its title - employs the DID method to investigate the impact of the top-1000 energy-saving program on the labor demand of enterprises from China based on the panel data from 2000 until 2010. The paper is quite interesting, technically sound, and quite robust, even though the relevance and applicability of its results raises some questions. Below are my comments and suggestions for the authors:
1. The analysis of the output and substitution effects as mechanisms through which the policy affects labor demand is not explained well in the paper and needs to be strengthened.
2. The literature review could be more comprehensive in discussing the global context of energy-saving programs and labor market impacts.
3. Although robustness tests are included, the paper relies heavily on DID analysis without sufficiently addressing potential endogeneity issues or discussing the assumptions behind the parallel trends hypothesis.
4. The time frame of the study (2000-2010) excludes more recent data, which might significantly alter the analyzed dynamics. The data is more than 10 years old and neglect COVID-19 , trade wars, and other issues! This makes the paper and its results somewhat outdated.
5. The paper's focus on China’s top-1000 enterprises, while valuable, limits the generalizability of the findings. The study does not sufficiently account for the structural differences between industries or between different regions within China, which may have different energy consumption profiles or labor market dynamics.
6. The Conclusions offer the repetition of results and outcomes. The section needs to be written up to include policy implications, pathways for further research, and specifically the issue of outdated data and justification of its use for this paper.
7. The paper might need some English check and proofreading.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageProofreading can help to improve the paper a great deal.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article is written in a scientific style, has acceptable content and may be of interest to researchers studying the labor market. At the same time, the article contains the following controversial points and inaccuracies:
1. The introduction does not describe the structure of the study.
2. Interesting fact: The theoretical analysis section does not contain a literature review or references to literature!
- Lines: 135-136 The output effect refers to the fact that the top-1000 energy-saving program affects; Line 135: the output of enterprises, which in turn affects the labor demand of enterprises.
It is worth explaining why the option of own production of energy by enterprises from alternative ecological sources is not considered. Why is the only way considered "to achieve energy-saving goals by reducing energy consumption per unit of output value"?
- Table 1. Variable definition table.
Line: 256 𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒕 denotes the time trend term.
Lines: 414-415 characterizes the output effect in terms of the gross industrial output value.
It is worth explaining the choice of variables.
For example, the introduction of the variable "Age of the enterprise" - "Current year minus year of business registration" is questionable. Have enterprises not updated technologies and equipment during their existence? Perhaps it was more appropriate to take the factor of renovation of the company's equipment as a variable?
What is meant by the term "time trend"? Does this variable account for dynamic technology updates?
Table 8 presents the regression results for three enterprise sizes. Is it worth explaining the concept of "enterprise size" - by the volume of energy consumption, by the volume of production? Obviously, isn’t there a possible option when an enterprise with a small volume of production has a higher specific energy consumption (per unit of production)? If it really "characterizes the output effect in terms of the gross industrial output value", does this mean that the "size of the enterprise" automatically increases for enterprises with a higher added value of production?
- 4.1 Average Effect of the Policy on Enterprises’ Labor Demand
It is worth explaining why "Policy" affects gross production precisely because of, as it is clear from the context of the article, the factor of the amount of energy consumption, and not because of setting a limit on the level of concentration of harmful substances in emissions - i.e. counter-updating the technologies of energy-producing enterprises and energy-consuming enterprises.
- Line: 302 Coupled with the fact that the occurrence of the financial crisis in 2008 may also have affected the labor demand of enterprises.
The impact of the financial crisis in 2008 on employment is mentioned. Are there obviously other, possibly less significant, influencing factors not related to energy saving? For example, can they be sectoral ones - loss of sales markets, change in production nomenclature, etc.?
- Line: 253 while examining the dynamic effect.
Since the study of the dynamic effect is indicated, isn’t it worth evaluating the impact of the dynamics (pace) of innovations on the dynamics of changes in labor demand, while distinguishing between innovations aimed at increasing the volume of production and innovations aimed at reducing energy consumption?
- Line: 463 labor demand of SOEs is not significantly affected, but the policy significantly reduces the labor demand of non-SOEs.
There is no explanation why the labor demand of state-owned enterprises is not significantly affected. Do they have less strict requirements to reduce energy consumption? Or is their equipment more modern?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors have carried out fruitful work on improving the content of the manuscript. The aforementioned comments have been removed, which indicates the high qualification of the author. The manuscript can be recommended for publication in the current version.
