Profit Efficiency of Rice Farms in Wet-Season Lowlands in Champhone District, Savannakhet Province, Lao PDR
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper estimates the production efficiency of the rice farmers in Lao. The approach and the data are reasonable. The writing quality is easy to understood. Please see my comments below.
This application is made to Lao. This is to say you have shown that why should we read another SFA paper using the data in Lao?
Is there any specific or unique feature for rice farmers or rice production in Lao? If you make this clear, I believe the contribution of this paper to existing studies can be much highlighted.
The variables that are included or not included in the frontier and inefficiency function deserve much detailed explanation.
In general, the production function f(.) should only include the quantity and price of inputs and outputs. Socio-demographic variables should be included in the inefficiency term.
Given that a growing body of literature has focused on rice production in many other countries, it will be interesting to compare your findings to the ones revealed in other countries, China for example.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
About the paper with the title "Profit Efficiency of Rice Farms in Wet-Season Lowlands in Champhone District, Savannakhet Province, Lao PDR " I have the following concerns:
For a scientific paper, it is expected something new. Form the abstract, seems that the findings obtained are something already well-known. For example "The study found that rice production and selling prices have positive signs with respect to the rate of revenue; how- ever, costs of labor, seed, irrigation, fertilizers, and maintenance have negative signs with respect to 17 the rate of revenue, that is, if rice farmers produce more than before or sell at a higher price, this positively affects profits. On the other hand, high costs negatively affect rice farmers’ profits.", what is new here? Of course, the prices and the production improve the profit and the inputs reduce it. Please put in the abstract something more robust and novel.
The literature review is far from the expected about the topics addressed.
Please present the source of figure 2.
In the subsection 2.3.1 it is needed a more robust explanation about the model presented and how it was regressed. It is needed a scientific justification for this approach and a benchmarking with other methodologies. In addition, the authors analysed the profit efficiency, technical efficiency, economic efficiency? Why they used frontier models and not DEA or Malmquist index?
I was unable to understand the results presented in table 2. The authors estimated two different models? But with the same variance parameters?
Another motive of concern is the absence of concerns with the potential statistical problems in the regressions of table 2, such as multicollinearity, endogeneity, heteroscedastivity, autocorrelation (spatial and time-series), adequacy of the model, etc.
How table 3 was obtained. Please explain.
A conclusions sections is needed with the main insights, pratical implications, policy recommendations and future research.
Author Response
Please see the attchment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors:
I have read the paper again. In general, the quality of the paper is imporved in this revision. However, one of the comments is not in a satisfying version. In my previous comments, I suggets the authors to compare their finging to previous ones. This comment can be accommodated by reviewing relevant articles. In other words, this comment is possible to be addressed. Instead of listing this as a research limitation, I would lik to see extensive discussions in a long paragraph in the discussion section for this specific comment.
/*********************************************************************/
Point 4: Given that a growing body of literature has focused on rice production in many other countries, it will be interesting to compare your findings to the ones revealed in other countries, China for example.
Response 4: It is good a suggestion, but we leave this suggestion for further study.
- Please check from line 276 to line 279.
- /**********************************************************************/
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I suggest the authors explain better the novelty of the paper and it contributions for the science.
Author Response
We deeply appreciate for your value comments. We tried to explain more how this paper can contribute for further study in the Discussion section. The added lines are from 278 to 287.
