How Can Digital Villages Improve Basic Public Services Delivery in Rural Areas? Evidence from 1840 Counties in China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Dear authors,

The manuscript deals with a topical issue that occupy significant academic attention and addresses the most recent strategies for rural areas development. The hypothesis has been set, and the main goal has been well-presented, however, it is insufficiently clarified. In this regard, certain modifications are required. You can found all suggestions and comments in the document.

Best regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments on our manuscript entitled “How can digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas? Evidence from 1,840 counties in China” (Submission ID: 3201396). Those comments are not only valuable and helpful for revising and improving this paper, but also a priceless reference to our future research. We have studied comments carefully and accordingly made corrections that we hope could meet with approval standards. The corrections have been highlighted and are included in the latest version of the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as following:

Total comments: The manuscript deals with a topical issue of digital (smart) villages that occupy significant academic attention and addresses the most recent strategies for rural areas development. As the authors highlighted, digitalization has been seen as one of the prior development axes in rural areas, as well. The authors conduct a statistical assessment of this issue in China and how it affects public service provision in rural areas, an important component of rural areas' development. The hypothesis has been set, and the main goal has been presented, however, insufficiently clarified. In this regard, certain modifications are required.

Total response: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments make us more aware that digital villages have become a hot topic of research and discussion in the academic community. The vigorous development of digital technology has provided new opportunities for the development of agriculture and rural areas. The role of digital villages in improving basic public services delivery in rural areas deserves continued attention. Your comments have encouraged us to continue this research and made us further aware of some deficiencies in the manuscript. We have carefully studied your comments and revised the manuscript with reference to studies similar to the topic and methods of this study. The specific modifications and responses are as follows.

Point 1: The Introduction section should be referenced well and the authors should consult the abudand literature corpus on basic services provision. This issue has become a new direction in rural studies, unrelated a priori to smart villages. The authors should approach this issue in general and then present the China concept and previous experiences.

1) Sections 1, 2. and 3. have a similar concept and some repetitions should be avoided.

2) Provide some positive examples of digitalization in rural areas and its policy implication, in general, from literature, in order to emphasize the positive effect of digitalization on rural development.

3) Provision of the basic services is highly determined by the type of areas, morphometry, accessibility, etc. The type of the services varies, as well. The authors should pay attention to these two segments and provide a critical overview accordingly in the Introduction section.

4) Please, reassese the ‘research expectations’ at the end of the Introduction (lines 106-109). Some of them are not well addressed in the research.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The delivery of basic public services has become a key issue in rural development, especially since the accessibility of basic public services in rural areas is currently limited by factors such as geographical location and transportation convenience. The specific modifications are as follows. In the latest version, we sorted out a large number of previous related studies based on the existing literature on the topic of rural basic public services, and gave a corresponding overview of this issue in the introduction, further elaborating on the impact of digital villages in basic public services delivery. The specific modifications are as follows.

• We have reorganized the Introduction Section to more succinctly summarize the background of this study by removing the repetitive content and concepts in Sections 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 (see Line 67-111, Page 2-3 for details).
• Based on the existing digital villages practice and research, we further elaborated on the positive impact of digital villages in the latest version of Section 1.3 and added positive examples of digitalization in rural areas. The specific additions are as follows (see Line 78-85, Page 2 for details).

  “The diffusion and spillover effects of digital technology and mobile Internet help the governments provide basic public services to rural residents online at low cost and high efficiency, thus enabling digital villages to break the limitations of resources, geography, space and time. For example, online medical services are included in the digital villages platform. Rural residents can use telemedicine to obtain instant services, significantly improving the accessibility, timeliness and quality of medical care[11,12]. Rural residents can save travel expenses and time, reducing the cost of medical care.”

• We did not pay enough attention to this issue in the previous version. After your reminder, we added corresponding explanation in Section 1.3 of the latest version. The specific modifications are as follows (see Line 68-85, Page 2 for details).

“Basic public services are a subset of public services that meet the public’s most basic needs for survival and development, and have the characteristics and requirements of universality, balance, inclusiveness and equity. The traditional basic public services delivery is largely limited by regional economic and social development, geographical location, transportation convenience and government capacity. For rural areas, the limitations of the above conditions have caused various countries and regions to struggle with the plight of insufficient delivery of basic rural public services [6].”

“The diffusion and spillover effects of digital technology and mobile Internet help the governments provide basic public services to rural residents online at low cost and high efficiency, thus enabling digital villages to break the limitations of resources, geography, space and time. For example, online medical services are included in the digital villages platform. Rural residents can use telemedicine to obtain instant services, significantly improving the accessibility, timeliness and quality of medical care[11,12]. Rural residents can save travel expenses and time, reducing the cost of medical care.”

3) Your comments made us realize that there were some confusing contents in the previous version of the research question. We have revised the research question at the end of the Introduction based on the research content of this study to ensure that it is consistent with the research findings. The revised research question is as follows (see Line 106-109, Page 3 for details).

 “Three questions are then raised: How do digital villages affect rural basic public services delivery? What aspects of rural basic public services have been affected by digital villages? To what extent does digital villages affect rural basic public services delivery? Is this effect heterogeneous across regions?”

Point 2: A literature review is well-written and well-structuralized.

• Put the authors’ name in front of the references (lines 162 and 197)
• Suggestion to present the existing research on digital villages in China in 2.3. sub-section

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments remind us that the current status of research on China's digital villages needs to be considered in order to better grasp the current research foundation, existing problems, and the possibility of further deepening on the basis of existing research. In combination with your comments and relevant literature, we have made modifications to the literature review section. The specific modifications are as follows.

• We have modified the corresponding citations in the main text.
• Based on your comments, we have added a paragraph in Section 2.3 to explain the current status of research on China’s digital villages. The new content is as follows(see Line 185-203, Page 4-5 for details).

“The construction of digital villages is the key to the sustainable development of China’s rural areas in the future and has become a hot topic in academia. The current qualitative research on China’s digital villages mainly focuses on the policy development, content framework, and operation mechanism of digital village construction. The research methods mainly include theoretical construction, case study, and policy analysis. Based on relevant theoretical exploration, some scholars have gradually shifted their research focus to quantitative analysis and constructed some evaluation index systems for China’s digital village construction [36-38]. The development of China’s digital villages is still in its infancy, with varying degrees of development between regions. There are relatively large differences in location conditions, technological levels, economic and social development, and resource and environmental conditions between various regions in China, which has led to regional imbalances in the construction of digital villages [39,40]. Specifically, China’s eastern region has shown a higher level of digital rural construction, while the western region has less mature infrastructure and is slower to adopt digital rural construction [39,41]. Related studies have analyzed the effects of the development of digital villages in China from specific perspectives. These studies have verified the role of digital villages in improving agricultural scale operations [42], promoting rural economic development[40,43], bolstering agroecological efficiency [44], narrowing the urban-rural in-come gap, and reducing carbon emissions [46].”

Point 3: Theoretical analysis should be a critical overview, in order to avoid repetitions with previous segments.

• The same reference has been mentioned twice in one sentence (lines 253-255).

Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The section “3. Theoretical analysis and research hypotheses” is mainly used to explain how digital villages can improve rural basic public services delivery at the theoretical level. In the latest version, we have improved the theoretical analysis and added a general discussion in “3. Theoretical analysis and research hypotheses” to explain the overview and purpose of this section, and supplemented the theoretical sources and literature. The additions is as follows (see Line 241-248, Page 5-6 for details).

“Digital governance theory proposes to promote the transformation of governance paradigm through reintegration, demand-based holism and digital transformation, especially in the field of public services delivery, to improve the accessibility, equity, agility, holistic and participation of public services [51,52]. Therefore, this section explores the theoretical mechanism of using digital villages to improve the accessibility, equity, agility, holistic and participation of basic rural public services based on digital governance theory. The purpose of this section is to determine how digital villages can improve the supply of basic rural public services at the theoretical level.”

In addition, your comments made us realize that the theoretical analysis in Section 3.2 was somewhat repetitive with the previous sections, so we simplified and rewritten this section to highlight the critical overview and avoid repetition. The revised Section 3.2 is as follows (see Line 261-270, Page 6 for details).

“3.2. Digital villages improve the equity of rural basic public services

The digital divide between urban and rural areas is the main source of inequity in digital public services delivery [3]. The development of digital villages means that the focus of digital transformation has shifted from urban to rural areas. This will help rural areas that have previously lagged behind in digital transformation to gradually catch up with the digital age, thereby alleviating the digital divide between urban and rural areas. As a national strategy, digital villages have received much government investment in hopes of bridging the urban–rural digital divide and enhancing digital inclusion [53], thus allowing rural residents to access digital public services and improving the equity of these services.”

1) The duplicate references you mentioned have been deleted.

Point 4: Material and methods require additional clarification. It is necessary to design the methodological path, otherwise is difficult to follow and to understand the purpose of the conducted methods.

• The research time frame is outdated, as the authors recognized as one of the main limitations. However, longitudinal research on this aspect is welcome. Is there any previous assessment on this topic that could provide a wide concept?
• Introduce abbreviation where applicable, e.g. digital village index, the composite index of rural basic public services
• It is not clear how the County Digital Villages Index is constructed. Explain the lines 328-332.
• Add the source for Table 1
• It is necessary to adapt Tables 1 and 2. Separate the presented indicators with row lines to make it easier to understand the classification and relations.

Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. According to your comments, we realize that the section “4. Materials and methods” needs to be further improved. In the latest version, we have made revisions based on your comments. The specific explanations and revisions are as follows.

• As you said, the use of cross-sectional data is indeed one of the main limitations of this study. The impact of digital villages on the supply of basic rural public services and its mechanism still need to be observed and empirically studied over a longer time span. This limitation is also stated in section “6.4. Limitations”. However, there are more than 1,800 county-level regions in China (excluding urban districts), and digital villages assessment is a very large task, which makes it difficult to obtain relevant data. The relevant reports only publish data from very few years, and there are differences in the indicators and data available in different years, making it difficult to form panel data. In addition, this study takes 1,840 counties in China as the research sample, with a large enough sample size and sufficient coverage, representativeness and accuracy.
• The latest version has adopted abbreviations for independent and dependent variables after their first appearance. Digital villages index is abbreviated as “DVI”, and the composite index of rural basic public services is abbreviated as “RBPS”.
• Your comments made us realize that the previous version of the manuscript did not elaborate on how the county digital villages index was constructed. In the latest version of the “4.2. Variables measurement” section, we have further introduced the construction and measurement process of the digital villages index system based on the ‘County Digital Villages Index (2018)’ report. The details are as follows (see Line 335-371, Page 8 for details)

“Independent variable. The independent variable, digital villages index (DVI), was measured following the approach described in the ‘County Digital Villages Index (2018)’ report. The report measured the DVI of 1,880 counties in 2018 based on the existing re-search definitions of digital villages, covering four aspects: rural digital infrastructure, rural economic digitisation, rural governance digitisation and rural life digitisation. The process mainly included 3 steps: data standardisation processing, determining index weights and testing the reasonableness of the index construction. In order to scientifically and reasonably determine the weight of the indicator system, this report adopts the Delphi method and consults 16 experts from various professional fields of agriculture and rural areas, including various universities and research institutions in China, as well as many researchers and senior experts from relevant departments of Alibaba Group. The data comes from Alibaba Group and its partner businesses and ecosystem partners, China National Statistical Yearbook, and online public big data. This study uses publicly released report and its data (obtained from: http://www.aliresearch.com/cn/index). This report only contains the evaluation results, not the original data. The final county digital villages indicator system contains 12 secondary indexes and 29 specific indexes as shown in Table 1.”

• Table 1 is derived from the ‘County Digital Villages Index (2018)’ report, and we have supplemented it at the end of Table 1.
• We have adjusted Table 1 and Table 2 based on your comments to make the indicator system clearer.

Point 5: Results should be supplemented with additional interpretations of the tables, particularly Table 3, 4 and 6. It is not clarified in the text what the analysis brings.

• The legend in Figures 1a and 1b should address the categories given in the text (line 390) and avoid the thresholds.

Response 5: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. According to your comments, we further explained and analyzed the results of Tables 3, 4, and 6. In the latest version, the explanations of Tables 3 and 6 are included in the “6.1. Discussions” section, and the explanation of Table 4 is included in the “5.2. Entropy method” section. The specific corrections are as follows.

Explanation of Table 3 (see Line 508-514, Page 14 for details): “Here, this study further explains the reasons for the main findings. First, the main reason for the regional differences in digital villages and rural public services delivery is that China’s regional economic and social development levels vary greatly, especially the economic scale is more concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, while the central and western regions lack sufficient resources to develop digital villages and provide sufficient basic public services [39,72]. The scale effect and agglomeration effect of the digital industry magnifiy the difference in digital villages development between different regions.”

Explanation of Table 4 (see Line 422-426, Page 11 for details): “To measure the level of rural basic public services in each county, six specific indicators were used to constitute the composite variable, and the entropy method was applied to calculate the weights of each constituent indicator and RBPS. Table 4 displays the weights of each indicator. The weights of these indicators reflect the extent to which the RBPS is composed of specific indicators.”

Explanation of Table 6 (see Line 515-532, Page 14 for details): “Second, the construction of digital villages can improve rural basic public services delivery at the overall level. Based on available resources, the construction of digital villages provides rural areas with low-cost access to quality resources, thus laying the foundation for realising accessibility. Basic public services, together with the advanced knowledge and production factors from cities, are continuously extended to rural areas, thus optimising the mode and efficiency of rural basic public services delivery and improving the quantity and quality of these services. At the same time, the construction of digital villages improves the way public services are supplied and the precision of supply content and supervision. By using a modern public service platform, services can be provided precisely according to the local conditions and the villagers’ individual needs, and social organisations and the public can participate in the whole delivery process. For example, in some rural areas of Beijing, China, public service projects are incorporated into digital platforms in the form of a “menu”, and online and offline services are provided according to the online requirements of rural residents [73]. A specific scenario is that when the elderly raise medical needs on the platform, community health workers will come to provide medical services. In this way, digital villages precisely match supply with demand for rural basic public services, which not only improves the quality and efficiency of services delivery but also promotes its accessibility and equity.”

• We have revised the textual explanation of Figure 1a and Figure 1b in subsection 5.3 and made it consistent with the legend of Figure 1.

Point 6: Discussion and conclusions should be reorganized.

• The subsection 6.1. represent conclusions that should be extracted from this section. The discussion and conclusions should be presented separately.
• A discussion of the given results is missing. It is necessary to include some discussion of the presented results, like descriptive statistics and existing ’huge gaps between counties’ (line 378); spatial distribution of the indices (subsection 5.3); explain the difference derived from heterogeneity analysis, etc. The authors should put the findings in the wider context and highlight their theoretical significance, as they mentioned in the Introduction section.
• I am not sure how authors support the claim ’by offering a systematic theoretical analysis’ (line 458). It should be discussed in this section.

Response 6: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The specific modifications are as follows. Your comments made us realize that there were many deficiencies in the previous version of the Discussions and Conclusions. Based on your comments and the content of the article, we have adjusted and improved the Discussions and Conclusions. The specific modifications are as follows.

• We summarized the Discussion section and added “6.2 Conclusions” to separate the Discussions and Conclusions.
• According to your comments, in the latest version, we have further discussed the results, strengthened the theoretical dialogue, and supplemented the literature basis. The supplementary content is included in the section “6.1. Discussions”, as shown below.

Explanation of ‘huge gaps between counties’ (see Line 508-514, Page 14 for details): “Here, this study further explains the reasons for the main findings. First, the main reason for the regional differences in digital villages and rural public services delivery is that China’s regional economic and social development levels vary greatly, especially the economic scale is more concentrated in the eastern coastal areas, while the central and western regions lack sufficient resources to develop digital villages and provide sufficient basic public services [39,72]. The scale effect and agglomeration effect of the digital industry magnifiy the difference in digital villages development between different regions.”

Explanation of heterogeneity analysis (see Line 549-563, Page 15 for details): “Third, from a regional perspective, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that the promoting impact of digital villages on basic public services delivery is primarily observed in relatively developed eastern regions and is largely absent in central and western regions given their relatively low levels of economic and social development. Some studies believe that differences in digital resources, digital literacy and digital participation among different regions and groups also lead to differences in digital utilization results and digital dividends, which represents the digital divide[39,74,75]. The construction of digital villages often requires high costs, strong digital technology ac-cumulation and digital industry support (particularly in the development of digital public services in rural areas), and less developed regions often lack resources to build digital platforms for rural public services with a large number of users, high digital technology maturity and powerful features [76]. Therefore, the construction of digital villages is a highly public good that requires national unified planning and investment to guarantee the standardisation of digital public services platforms in rural areas in the form of transfer payments and special construction.”

• Your comments made us aware of the ambiguity in the theoretical analysis section in section “6.1. Discussions”. In the latest version, we have revised this section to ensure its accuracy (see Line 486-493 and 503-507, Page 13-14 for details).

“The construction of digital villages is expected to provide authorities with the opportunity to take advantage of digital technologies to compensate for the shortcomings in their rural basic public services delivery and to achieve rural sustainable development. However, theoretical mechanism analysis and empirical studies on how digital villages can enhance rural basic public services delivery remain limited. To fill this gap, this study analyses the theoretical mechanism of digital villages to enhance rural basic public services delivery from the perspectives of accessibility, equity, agility, holistic nature and participation.”

“As its main contribution, this study supplements the existing research by offering a theoretical explanation from the perspective of digital governance theory and large-sample empirical testing, thus providing a highly comprehensive and rigorous theoretical basis and evidence for digital villages to enhance the level of rural basic public services.”

Point 7: Check the reference No 4. It cannot be found on the Internet.

Response 7: Thank you for your reminder. We have checked this reference and supplemented the DOI and web links.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all,  I would like to congratulate the authors on choosing a very interesting issue to research.

In summary, please add one sentence explaining why this effect is not observed in central and western counties (just put your judgment).

The state of development of the digital village in China is missing – some general data have to be provided, and also some general structure of public services provided through digital villages in China is missing. This data should be very general, but it also has to show the geographical distribution in east, west and central China. In the discussion authors outline „.... By using a modern public service platform,  services can be provided precisely according to the local conditions and the villagers’ individual needs, and social organizations and the public can participate in the whole delivery process. In this way, digital villages precisely match supply with demand for rural basic public services, which not only improves the quality and efficiency of services delivery but also promotes its accessibility and equity....“. It is not clear how many existing villages are built in this way to respect rural needs and some arguments regarding it have to be provided – for example, XXX innovative platforms that connect farmers with consumers directly by building short food chains or providing special types of foods to tourists or hotels or.....

There is a lack of research results interpretation and argumentation within the discussion part. In the discussion authors repeated a literature review not focusing on digital villages in China – the focus is more on the general benefits of digital villages. This has to be changed, especially since authors have to discuss more why the positive effect is not observed in central and western counties – is it just a question of development and financial resources or are there some other structural problems that are not mentioned? Also, examples of public policy to address identified challenges have to be provided.

The question of energy (especially green) has to be mentioned when the development of e-infrastructure is discussed. This also can be a challenge.

In the paper part "implications"  the rural population is seen as a passive recipient of digitalization. Such, an approach is not sustainable, especially in less developed countres. So, new, innovative practices, such as „peer support“ in upgrading digital literacy, and promoting new ways of doing things are necessary to increase the efficiency of public policy called digital villages.

 

The composite index does not reflect public service delivery in the area of cultural services – it is rarely mentioned. It is OK, but it has to be stated as a research limitation.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments on our manuscript entitled “How can digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas? Evidence from 1,840 counties in China” (Submission ID: 3201396). Those comments are not only valuable and helpful for revising and improving this paper, but also a priceless reference to our future research. We have studied comments carefully and accordingly made corrections that we hope could meet with approval standards. The corrections have been highlighted and are included in the latest version of the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as following:

Total comments: In summary, please add one sentence explaining why this effect is not observed in central and western counties (just put your judgment).

Total response: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The promotion effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery mainly occurs in the eastern region, while the central and western regions are basically lacking. This study believes that this is related to factors such as the level of economic development in different regions, and has been explained in the Discussions. In the latest version, we have expanded the “6.1. Discussions” section and provided a more comprehensive explanation of this issue. The details are as follows (see Line 503-507, Page 14 for details).

“Third, from a regional perspective, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that the promoting impact of digital villages on basic public services delivery is primarily observed in relatively developed eastern regions and is largely absent in central and western regions given their relatively low levels of economic and social development. Some studies believe that differences in digital resources, digital literacy and digital participation among different regions and groups also lead to differences in digital utilization results and digital dividends, which represents the digital divide[39,74,75]. The construction of digital villages often requires high costs, strong digital technology accumulation and digital industry support (particularly in the development of digital public services in rural areas), and less developed regions often lack resources to build digital platforms for rural public services with a large number of users, high digital technology maturity and powerful features [76]. Therefore, the construction of digital villages is a highly public good that requires national unified planning and investment to guarantee the standardisation of digital public services platforms in rural areas in the form of transfer payments and special construction.”

Point 1: The state of development of the digital village in China is missing – some general data have to be provided, and also some general structure of public services provided through digital villages in China is missing. This data should be very general, but it also has to show the geographical distribution in east, west and central China. In the discussion authors outline „.... By using a modern public service platform, services can be provided precisely according to the local conditions and the villagers’ individual needs, and social organizations and the public can participate in the whole delivery process. In this way, digital villages precisely match supply with demand for rural basic public services, which not only improves the quality and efficiency of services delivery but also promotes its accessibility and equity....“. It is not clear how many existing villages are built in this way to respect rural needs and some arguments regarding it have to be provided – for example, XXX innovative platforms that connect farmers with consumers directly by building short food chains or providing special types of foods to tourists or hotels or.....

Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. As you said, this study should describe the current status of the development of China’s digital villages. This comment is similar to Point 2 of Reviewer 1. Your comments made us realize that the current status of the development of China’s digital villages should be summarized in the literature review. In the latest version, we added a new paragraph in Section 2.3 to review the current status of research and practice of China’s digital villages. The new content is as follows (see Line 185-203, Page 4-5 for details).

“The construction of digital villages is the key to the sustainable development of China’s rural areas in the future and has become a hot topic in academia. The current qualitative research on China’s digital villages mainly focuses on the policy development, content framework, and operation mechanism of digital village construction. The research methods mainly include theoretical construction, case study, and policy analysis. Based on relevant theoretical exploration, some scholars have gradually shifted their research focus to quantitative analysis and constructed some evaluation index systems for China’s digital village construction [36-38]. The development of China's digital villages is still in its infancy, with varying degrees of development between regions. There are relatively large differences in location conditions, technological levels, economic and social development, and resource and environmental conditions between various regions in China, which has led to regional imbalances in the construction of digital villages [39,40]. Specifically, China’s eastern region has shown a higher level of digital rural construction, while the western region has less mature infrastructure and is slower to adopt digital rural construction [39,41]. Related studies have analyzed the effects of the development of digital villages in China from specific perspectives. These studies have verified the role of digital villages in improving agricultural scale operations [42], promoting rural economic development[40,43], bolstering agroecological efficiency [44], narrowing the urban-rural in-come gap, and reducing carbon emissions [46].”

Based on your comments, we have introduced cases in both the introduction and discussion to illustrate how digital villages can improve rural basic public services delivery in practice. For example:

In the “1. Introduction” section (see Line 78-85, Page 2 for details): “The diffusion and spillover effects of digital technology and mobile Internet help the governments provide basic public services to rural residents online at low cost and high efficiency, thus enabling digital villages to break the limitations of resources, geography, space and time. For example, online medical services are included in the digital villages platform. Rural residents can use telemedicine to obtain instant services, significantly improving the accessibility, timeliness and quality of medical care[11,12]. Rural residents can save travel expenses and time, reducing the cost of medical care.”

In the “6.1. Discussions” section (see Line 542-548, Page 15 for details): “The application of ‘Internet+’ in the rural healthcare sector has expanded the space and content of healthcare services, and the development of telemedicine and the promotion of ‘full online services’ have increased the accessibility of high quality healthcare services in rural areas. Digital villages also help disadvantaged groups in rural areas cross the ‘digital divide’ and play important roles in facilitating the identification of the needs of special groups, delivering services, monitoring effects and ensuring the effectiveness and precision of services collaboration.”

Point 2: There is a lack of research results interpretation and argumentation within the discussion part. In the discussion authors repeated a literature review not focusing on digital villages in China – the focus is more on the general benefits of digital villages. This has to be changed, especially since authors have to discuss more why the positive effect is not observed in central and western counties – is it just a question of development and financial resources or are there some other structural problems that are not mentioned? Also, examples of public policy to address identified challenges have to be provided.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The promotion effect of digital villages on the rural basic public services delivery mainly occurs in the eastern region, while it is basically absent in the central and western regions. This study believes that this is related to factors such as the level of economic development in different regions, and has been explained in the “6.1. Discussions” section. The specific modifications are as follows (see Line 549-563, Page 15 for details).

“Third, from a regional perspective, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that the promoting impact of digital villages on basic public services delivery is primarily observed in relatively developed eastern regions and is largely absent in central and western regions given their relatively low levels of economic and social development. Some studies believe that differences in digital resources, digital literacy and digital participation among different regions and groups also lead to differences in digital utilization results and digital dividends, which represents the digital divide[39,74,75]. The construction of digital villages often requires high costs, strong digital technology accumulation and digital industry support (particularly in the development of digital public services in rural areas), and less developed regions often lack resources to build digital platforms for rural public services with a large number of users, high digital technology maturity and powerful features [76]. Therefore, the construction of digital villages is a highly public good that requires national unified planning and investment to guarantee the standardisation of digital public services platforms in rural areas in the form of transfer payments and special construction.”

Point 3: The question of energy (especially green) has to be mentioned when the development of e-infrastructure is discussed. This also can be a challenge.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Energy challenges in the process of digital development have also gradually attracted widespread attention. We apologize that we did not pay attention to this issue in the previous version. After your reminder, we have added relevant discussions in the “6.1. Discussions” section and supplemented the literature. The specific content is as follows (see Line 570-577, Page 15 for details).

“Another challenge in the development of digital villages is energy and environmental issues. The spread of digital technology and the popularization of digital infrastructure are heavily dependent on rare metals, water and electricity, and produce toxic waste, resulting in widespread investment in digital villages that puts pressure on the environment and energy [78,79]. The future development of digital villages requires the formulation of flexible and sustainable strategies to cope with possible challenges, towards a circular digital economy, and the innovation of clean, low-carbon and efficient energy supply architecture.”

Point 4: In the paper part "implications" the rural population is seen as a passive recipient of digitalization. Such, an approach is not sustainable, especially in less developed countres. So, new, innovative practices, such as “peer support” in upgrading digital literacy, and promoting new ways of doing things are necessary to increase the efficiency of public policy called digital villages.

Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. In underdeveloped areas, the effectiveness of digital villages often faces difficulties in digital literacy. Based on your comments and relevant literature, we have added relevant discussions in the "6. Conclusions and implications" section. The specific content is as follows.

In the “6.1. Discussions” section (see Line 564-570, Page 15 for details): “Finally, the challenges related to rural residents mainly concern their poor digital literacy [77], their insufficient adoption of digital services [76] and the lack of capacity of digitally marginalised groups to access adequate digital services. To address these challenges, specific policies and investments should be made to provide rural residents with affordable digital skills training and education programmes, to improve the ease of use and intelligence of digital public services platforms and to provide an adequate mix of online and offline public services for digitally marginalised groups.”

In the “6.3. Practical implications” section (see Line 632-638, Page 16 for details):  “(5) Accelerate the development of rural digital talent and the spread of digital application technologies. Through publicity, promotion and digital skills training on digital basic public services, authorities can expose rural residents to the use of digital services, improve their digital literacy, encourage their digital services adoption, provide special venues, personnel and equipment for digitally disadvantaged groups and ensure that the majority of the rural residents have low-cost and convenient access to digital public services.”

Point 5: The composite index does not reflect public service delivery in the area of cultural services – it is rarely mentioned. It is OK, but it has to be stated as a research limitation.

Response 5:Thank you very much for your valuable comments. As you pointed out, public cultural services are an important part of public services, and their absence is one of the limitations of this study. Due to the large sample size of counties covered in this study and the scarcity of county-level statistical data, it is difficult to obtain sufficient data on county cultural services. Therefore, public cultural services are not included in the measurement of basic public services. Based on your comments, we have supplemented this limitation in the “6.4. Limitations” section. The supplementary content is as follows (see Line 647-651, Page 17 for details).

“Third, the composition and scope of rural basic public services in various countries or regions are constantly expanding. Due to the scarcity of statistical data at the county level in China, some services have not yet been included in the indicator system, such as county-level public cultural services and employment services, which need to be further expanded in future research.”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

I am sending several ideas and comments regarding Your article:

1.      The article examines the sources of benefits of digital villages in detail, but not enough attention is paid to why the concept of digital villages is difficult to implement in practice. In my opinion, the creation of digital villages is not possible without increasing the digital literacy of rural residents, so this aspect should be given special attention.

2.      The first hypothesis is very obvious and does not create deep scientific intrigue. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to examine the impact of different digital tools on the provision of specific public services.

3.      Line 317 states that one of the indicators of public services - general public budget revenue. I would not agree with the statement, because public budget income does not reflect the quality of public services. But this is the limitation of the entire study - public services are evaluated only by quantitative indicators (Table 2).

4.      The last subsection on practical implications of results presents a whole series of measures for the creation of digital villages, but the suggestions are abstract and have little connection with the results of the research and the provision of public services.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments on our manuscript entitled “How can digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas? Evidence from 1,840 counties in China” (Submission ID: 3201396). Those comments are not only valuable and helpful for revising and improving this paper, but also a priceless reference to our future research. We have studied comments carefully and accordingly made corrections that we hope could meet with approval standards. The corrections have been highlighted and are included in the latest version of the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as following:

Point 1: The article examines the sources of benefits of digital villages in detail, but not enough attention is paid to why the concept of digital villages is difficult to implement in practice. In my opinion, the creation of digital villages is not possible without increasing the digital literacy of rural residents, so this aspect should be given special attention.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We agree with your opinion that digital literacy can affect rural residents’ digital participation and their ability and effectiveness in adopting digital public services, which is a key issue facing the development of digital villages. Based on your comments and relevant literature, we have added relevant explanations in the “6. Conclusions and implications” section to pay more attention to this issue and respond in a more detailed manner. The revised content is as follows.

In the “6.1. Discussions” section (see Line 564-571, Page 15 for details): “Finally, the challenges related to rural residents mainly concern their poor digital literacy [77], their insufficient adoption of digital services [76] and the lack of capacity of digitally marginalised groups to access adequate digital services. To address these challenges, specific policies and investments should be made to provide rural residents with affordable digital skills training and education programmes, to improve the ease of use and intelligence of digital public services platforms and to provide an adequate mix of online and offline public services for digitally marginalised groups.”

In the “6.3. Practical implications” section (see Line 632-638, Page 16 for details): “(5) Accelerate the development of rural digital talent and the spread of digital application technologies. Through publicity, promotion and digital skills training on digital basic public services, authorities can expose rural residents to the use of digital services, improve their digital literacy, encourage their digital services adoption, provide special venues, personnel and equipment for digitally disadvantaged groups and ensure that the majority of the rural residents have low-cost and convenient access to digital public services.”

Point 2: The first hypothesis is very obvious and does not create deep scientific intrigue. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to examine the impact of different digital tools on the provision of specific public services.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments provide great inspiration for our future research. We have further supplemented the contribution of this study in the “6.1. Discussions” section to highlight the scientific significance of this study (see Line 486-507, Page 13-14 for details).

“The construction of digital villages is expected to provide authorities with the opportunity to take advantage of digital technologies to compensate for the shortcomings in their rural basic public services delivery and to achieve rural sustainable development. However, theoretical mechanism analysis and empirical studies on how digital villages can enhance rural basic public services delivery remain limited. To fill this gap, this study analyses the theoretical mechanism of digital villages to enhance rural basic public services delivery from the perspectives of accessibility, equity, agility, holistic nature and participation. To verify the proposed hypotheses, this study employs the entropy method, correlation analysis, regression analysis and heterogeneity analysis to verify the effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery based on macro data reported in 2018. Three key findings are obtained: 1) DVI and rural RBPS have large differences among regions; 2) The construction of China’s digital villages has an enhancement effect on the level of rural basic public services delivery; 3) The enhancement effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery is mainly observed in eastern counties but is not observed in central and western counties.

Previous qualitative studies show that digital villages hold great potential in improving rural education resources [68,69], healthcare [18,70], social services [8] and cultural services [71]. As its main contribution, this study supplements the existing research by offering a theoretical explanation from the perspective of digital governance theory and large-sample empirical testing, thus providing a highly comprehensive and rigorous theoretical basis and evidence for digital villages to enhance the level of rural basic public services.”

In addition, the research on related topics is still in its infancy, and this study is indeed difficult to respond to all the questions on this topic. Your valuable comments are very inspiring for our further research. In future research, we will further explore the impact of different digital tools on the provision of specific public services.

Point 3: Line 317 states that one of the indicators of public services - general public budget revenue. I would not agree with the statement, because public budget income does not reflect the quality of public services. But this is the limitation of the entire study - public services are evaluated only by quantitative indicators (Table 2).

Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments are of great inspiration to us in improving the evaluation system of basic public services. This article includes general public budget revenue in the basic public services indicators, mainly because the general public budget is the public budget with the largest revenue and expenditure in China’s public budget system and mainly provides basic public services. Local governments use public budget revenue to fund public services expenditures. Therefore, general public budget revenue is the most important source of funds for basic public services. Some quantitative studies also included local government public budgets in education, health care, social security and other aspects into the indicator system of basic public services. Considering the limitations of county data availability, this article uses general public budget revenue to reflect public services investment.

In the latest version, we added new explanations and supplemented relevant literature in the section “4.2. Dependent variable”. The specific new additions are as follows (see Line 383-386, Page 9 for details).

“General public budget revenue is one of the most important source of funds for basic public services. Related studies also includes local government public budget as one of the indicators for basic public services such as education, medical care, and social security [61-64].”

Point 4: The last subsection on practical implications of results presents a whole series of measures for the creation of digital villages, but the suggestions are abstract and have little connection with the results of the research and the provision of public services.

Response 4: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Based on your comments, we have revised and improved the section “6.3. Practical implications” and rewritten the abstract to make the practical implications consistent with the research findings and sufficiently specific. The specific changes are as follows (see Line 608-620, Page 16 for details).

“(2) Use data integration to promote the holistic delivery of rural basic public services. Digital villages should be used to promote the sharing and integration of basic public service data between regions and between urban and rural areas, thereby strengthening cross-level, cross-regional and cross-departmental cooperation, building an integrated basic public service digital platform to meet the diverse needs of rural residents, and realizing the holistic delivery of rural digital public services.

(3) Utilize digital villages to establish a platform for collecting, expressing and feedback of basic public service needs, provide opportunities for the broad participation of rural residents, and enhance interaction between the government and rural residents. At the same time, conduct full-process supervision of the quality and quantity of rural basic public services delivery, promptly perceive and respond to the actual needs and demands of rural residents, especially vulnerable groups, provide more accurate personalized services, and promote accurate matching of supply and demand.”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This paper dwells on the issues of how digital villages improve the basic public service delivery in rural China with construction of digital villages. The manuscript is neatly written with informed introduction, literature review and theoretical foundation. Comments given here are basically for improving the paper further.

On methods and materials, many literatures divide China into 4 regions, including northeast, which is significantly different form the 3 regions considered in this paper, the reasons for not including/separating northeast needs to be stated clearly and supported by literature, logics, descriptive statistics and so on.

Data of some of the sources used in specific indicators (Table 1) could be sensitive, especially those with real name users, app usage time by subscribers and so on, how are sauch data received, would they infringe the basic rights and may touch the research ethics issues. Or if they are available online publicly for research purposes, in such a case mention will be needed and how where can they be available.

In discussion and conclusion, authors write, "construction of digital villages has promoted the spread of digital technology in rural areas and has a positive impact......" line 461~ this reviewer wonders if this can be established in this paper as there is no causal inference. this statement also contradicts the situation for example in the west where the services couldn't be improved even with construction of digital villages, line 476~

Thus, this section and the practical implications sections should be revised in line with the methods and materials used and the results. Yes, using causal inference methods may add value to the paper towards what the authors intend to establish and make the evidence-based argument.

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your letter and for the comments on our manuscript entitled “How can digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas? Evidence from 1,840 counties in China” (Submission ID: 3201396). Those comments are not only valuable and helpful for revising and improving this paper, but also a priceless reference to our future research. We have studied comments carefully and accordingly made corrections that we hope could meet with approval standards. The corrections have been highlighted and are included in the latest version of the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are as following:

Total comments: This paper dwells on the issues of how digital villages improve the basic public service delivery in rural China with construction of digital villages. The manuscript is neatly written with informed introduction, literature review and theoretical foundation. Comments given here are basically for improving the paper further.

Total response: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments encouraged us to continue this study and made us more aware of some deficiencies in the manuscript. We have carefully studied your comments and revised the manuscript with reference to articles in authoritative journals with similar topics and methods to this study. The specific modifications and responses are as follows.

Point 1:On methods and materials, many literatures divide China into 4 regions, including northeast, which is significantly different form the 3 regions considered in this paper, the reasons for not including/separating northeast needs to be stated clearly and supported by literature, logics, descriptive statistics and so on.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. As you pointed out, there are many ways to divide China’s regions. This study refers to the “China Health Statistics Yearbook” and some existing literature and divides China into three major regions: eastern, central and western. The main basis for the division is geographical distribution and economic development level. According to your comments, we have elaborated on the basis of the division in the section “5.6. Heterogeneity analysis” and supplemented the literature reference. The details are as follows (see Line 469-478, Page 13 for details).

“This study divides China into three major regions: eastern, central, and western. Based on the China Health Statistics Yearbook and existing literature, the division is based on geographical distribution and economic development level [66]. This division is also closely related to China's reform and opening up and economic development strategy: The eastern region refers to the region that first implemented the coastal opening-up policy and has a higher level of economic development; The central region refers to the economically underdeveloped region; The western region refers to the least developed region among the three major regions [67].”

Point 2: Data of some of the sources used in specific indicators (Table 1) could be sensitive, especially those with real name users, app usage time by subscribers and so on, how are sauch data received, would they infringe the basic rights and may touch the research ethics issues. Or if they are available online publicly for research purposes, in such a case mention will be needed and how where can they be available.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. The data privacy and research ethics issues you mentioned are indeed worthy of attention. The data used in this study are all publicly released data and do not contain any original privacy data. Following your reminder, we have added the data source description in the section “4.2. Variables measurement” based on the ‘County Digital Villages Index (2018)’ report, where you can find the method to access these specific data. The details are as follows (see Line 361-369, Page 8 for details).

“In order to scientifically and reasonably determine the weight of the indicator system, this report adopts the Delphi method and consults 16 experts from various professional fields of agriculture and rural areas, including various universities and research institutions in China, as well as many researchers and senior experts from relevant departments of Alibaba Group. The data comes from Alibaba Group and its partner businesses and ecosystem partners, China National Statistical Yearbook, and online public big data. This study uses publicly released report and its data (obtained from: http://www.aliresearch.com/cn/index). This report only contains the evaluation results, not the original data.”

Point 3:In discussion and conclusion, authors write, "construction of digital villages has promoted the spread of digital technology in rural areas and has a positive impact......" line 461~ this reviewer wonders if this can be established in this paper as there is no causal inference. this statement also contradicts the situation for example in the west where the services couldn't be improved even with construction of digital villages, line 476~

Thus, this section and the practical implications sections should be revised in line with the methods and materials used and the results. Yes, using causal inference methods may add value to the paper towards what the authors intend to establish and make the evidence-based argument.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments made us realize that there is a certain degree of deviation between this statement and the empirical analysis. Therefore, we revised the section “6.1. Discussions” and changed the relevant content to: “Second, the construction of digital villages can improve rural basic public services delivery at the overall level.” (see Line 515-516, Page 14 for details) This is a brief summary based on the results of regression analysis. This paper uses the least squares method (OLS) to verify the positive effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery, which is a common method to study whether a single factor or multiple factors have an impact on a variable and what the direction of the impact is.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The response from the authors is appreciated. However, still need confirmation on following points and realigning the writing according to the method used, correlation analysis and not causation analysis.

Response 1: in this case, in which region northeast is included and does that satisfy the 3 economic developmental stage or for that matter geographical attributes that the authors use to divide China into 3regions.

Response 2: visited http://www.aliresearch.com/cn/index to find the data on " Alipay real-name users" and others but couldn't locate them. can you make it available in supplementary materials or show how to locate in the publicly available data set. 

 Response 3: Causal analysis has been widely used in social sciences to analyse impact, effect, improve, changes etc of any intervention, policy, events etc on any results thereafter. They are unidirectional in establishing the cause-and-effect relations. 

Such analytical analysis can't be established by correlation or any regression analysis alone, though such analysis were used earlier, sometimes mistakenly, sometimes unconsciously interpreted to have unidirectional relations, which the authors claim to be, "This paper uses the least squares method (OLS) to verify the positive effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery, which is a common method to study whether a single factor or multiple factors have an impact on a variable and what the direction of the impact is". Research world has advanced in defining and using proper methods for impact analysis. Regression analysis including OLS alone can only establish the positive or negative association, if significant, between the outcome variable(s) and the independent variables/factors. Empirical analysis gives outcomes in numerical values; coefficients etc with significance levels, hence use of words can, may etc are not used generally and not recommended as it will underestimate the outcomes and dilute the essence of the findings.

Design of this research can't establish, "digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas in China". However, it can be said that " there is a positive association between digital villages and basic public services delivery in rural areas in China" which seemingly have impacts on both directions. From the contents of this paper this reviewer understands that the basic public services delivery in rural areas in China is better where there is for example "diffusion and spillover effects of digital technology and mobile Internet" (line 78-79) and consequently digital villages function smoothly in such areas to deliver the services, and vice versa, revealing the difference in performances in western and central regions. So, it is more of technology that matters than digital village in delivering the services.

As mentioned in earlier review, this paper has its value in raising the issue of basic public service delivery in rural areas in China, it is recommended to realign the writing that is in line with the regression analysis, by using the appropriate terminologies from introduction, especially research questions and hypothesis to conclusion and implication.

Authors are encouraged to do causal analysis with panel data to establish what they intended to do in this paper in the future.

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer:

Thank you very much for your letter again and for the comments on our manuscript entitled “How can digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas? Evidence from 1,840 counties in China” (Submission ID: 3201396). Those comments are not only valuable and helpful for revising and improving this manuscript, but also a priceless reference to our future research. We have studied your comments carefully and accordingly made corrections that we hope could meet with approval standards. The corrections have been highlighted and are included in the latest version of the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and the responds to the comments are as following.

Total comments: The response from the authors is appreciated. However, still need confirmation on following points and realigning the writing according to the method used, correlation analysis and not causation analysis.

Total response: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We have carefully studied your comments and revised the manuscript with reference to articles in authoritative journals with similar topics and methods to this study. The specific revisions and responses are as follows.

Point 1:  In this case, in which region northeast is included and does that satisfy the 3 economic developmental stage or for that matter geographical attributes that the authors use to divide China into 3regions.

Response 1: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. This manuscript mainly refers to the "China Health Statistics Yearbook" and related research, dividing China into three major regions: the east, the middle and the west. Among them, the three northeastern provinces are specifically divided as follows: Liaoning Province is classified in the eastern region, Jilin Province and Heilongjiang Province are classified in the central region. As we stated in the manuscript, this division is based on geographical distribution and economic development level, and is also closely related to China’s reform and opening up and economic development strategy. According to the above statistical yearbook and related literature, we further elaborate on the basis of China’s regional division from the research and practical perspectives in Section “5.6. Heterogeneity analysis” (see Line 469-479, Page 13 for details).

“To determine whether the effects of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery are heterogeneous across regions, the 1,840 counties were divided into eastern, central and western regions for a heterogeneity analysis. This study divides China into three major regions: eastern, central, and western. Based on the China Health Statistics Yearbook and existing literature, the division is based on geographical distribution and economic development level [65-68]. This division is also closely related to China’s reform and opening up and economic development strategy: The eastern region refers to the region that first implemented the coastal opening-up policy and has a higher level of economic development; The central region refers to the relatively underdeveloped economic regions; The western region refers to the least developed region among the three major regions [69]. According to the above statistical yearbook and literature, Liaoning Province is classified in the eastern region, and Heilongjiang Province and Jilin Province are classified in the central region.”

At the same time, we have further supplemented the literature basis in the article. These articles are from authoritative journals in the field of technology policy and management. The specific relevant literature is as follows.

[1] Wang, Y.; Deng, X.; Zhang, H.; Liu, Y.; Yue, T.; Liu, G. Energy endowment, environmental regulation, and energy efficiency: Evidence from China. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 2022, 177, 121528, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121528.

[2] Li, J. Impact of financial development on innovation efficiency of high-tech industrial development zones in Chinese cities. Technology in Society. 2024, 76, 102467, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2024.102467.

[3] Lin, B.; Ma, R. Green technology innovations, urban innovation environment and CO2 emission reduction in China: Fresh evidence from a partially linear functional-coefficient panel model. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 2022, 176, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121434.

[4] Wu, M.; Zhao, M.; Wu, Z. Evaluation of development level and economic contribution ratio of science and technology innovation in eastern China. Technology in Society. 2019, 59, 101194, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2019.101194.

Point 2: visited http://www.aliresearch.com/cn/index to find the data on " Alipay real-name users" and others but couldn't locate them. can you make it available in supplementary materials or show how to locate in the publicly available data set. 

Response 2: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. Your comments made us realize that the previous web link made it difficult to find the data for this manuscript because it was the parent page of the data download page. We have updated the accurate web link in the “4.2. Variables measurement” section, which, after registration and login, allows downloading the ‘County Digital Villages Index (2018)’ report and viewing the data sources for each specific indicator. The details are as follows (see Line 366-368, Page 8 for details).

“This study uses publicly released report and its data (obtained from: http://www.aliresearch.com/ch/information/informationdetails?articleCode=142536283581976576&type=%E6%96%B0%E9%97%BB).”

Point 3: Causal analysis has been widely used in social sciences to analyse impact, effect, improve, changes etc of any intervention, policy, events etc on any results thereafter. They are unidirectional in establishing the cause-and-effect relations. 

Such analytical analysis can't be established by correlation or any regression analysis alone, though such analysis were used earlier, sometimes mistakenly, sometimes unconsciously interpreted to have unidirectional relations, which the authors claim to be, "This paper uses the least squares method (OLS) to verify the positive effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery, which is a common method to study whether a single factor or multiple factors have an impact on a variable and what the direction of the impact is". Research world has advanced in defining and using proper methods for impact analysis. Regression analysis including OLS alone can only establish the positive or negative association, if significant, between the outcome variable(s) and the independent variables/factors. Empirical analysis gives outcomes in numerical values; coefficients etc with significance levels, hence use of words can, may etc are not used generally and not recommended as it will underestimate the outcomes and dilute the essence of the findings.

Design of this research can't establish, "digital villages improve basic public services delivery in rural areas in China". However, it can be said that " there is a positive association between digital villages and basic public services delivery in rural areas in China" which seemingly have impacts on both directions. From the contents of this paper this reviewer understands that the basic public services delivery in rural areas in China is better where there is for example "diffusion and spillover effects of digital technology and mobile Internet" (line 78-79) and consequently digital villages function smoothly in such areas to deliver the services, and vice versa, revealing the difference in performances in western and central regions. So, it is more of technology that matters than digital village in delivering the services.

As mentioned in earlier review, this paper has its value in raising the issue of basic public service delivery in rural areas in China, it is recommended to realign the writing that is in line with the regression analysis, by using the appropriate terminologies from introduction, especially research questions and hypothesis to conclusion and implication.

Authors are encouraged to do causal analysis with panel data to establish what they intended to do in this paper in the future.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your valuable comments. This study mainly uses theoretical analysis and literature analysis to sort out how digital villages can improve rural basic public services delivery. Regression analysis (OLS) is mainly used to verify that there is a positively associated relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery, which to a certain extent verifies the relationship between the two. In other words, regression analysis can only verify theoretical analysis to a certain extent. Your comments made us realize that cross-sectional studies have natural shortcomings in analyzing causal relationships, especially in dealing with time fixed effects and individual fixed effects. Future research needs to use panel data analysis to strengthen the causal analysis between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery. Your comments point us in the direction of future research, but data availability limits current research. According to your comments, we have adjusted the contents related to regression analysis in the latest version to ensure that they are consistent with the role of regression analysis. That is, we have adjusted the relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery to a "positively associated relationship". The revised relevant content is as follows.

“Abstract” Section (see Line 20-24, Page 1 for details): “Empirical analysis results show that the construction of digital villages is positively associated with the level of basic public services in rural areas. Meanwhile, heterogeneity analysis results confirms that the positively associated relationship between China’s digital villages and rural basic public services delivery is mainly observed in eastern counties but not observed in central and western counties.”

“1. Introduction” Section (see Line 98-110, Page 3 for details): “Although the academic community has focused on digital villages and rural basic public services, scholars have mostly discussed the current situation and dilemmas of them yet relatively ignored their specific associated relationship and impact mechanism. A macro-level empirical analysis of the relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery is also lacking. To fill these gaps, this paper takes 1,840 counties in China as the research sample, combines theoretical and empirical analyses and thoroughly verifies the relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery to reveal its theoretical mechanism from the perspectives of the digital governance theory. Three questions are then raised: How do digital villages affect rural basic public services delivery at the theoretical level ? Are digital villages positively associated with rural basic public services delivery at the empirical level? Is this relationship heterogeneous across regions? This research is expected to provide a theoretical foundation and evidence-based basis for digital villages to enhance rural basic public services delivery.”

“3. Theoretical analysis and research hypotheses” section (see sub-heading for details):

“3.1. Digital villages are positively associated with the accessibility of rural basic public services”

“3.2. Digital villages are positively associated with the equity of rural basic public services”

“3.3. Digital villages are positively associated with the agility of rural basic public services”

“3.4. Digital villages are positively associated with the holistic nature of rural basic public services”

“3.5. Digital villages are positively associated with participation in rural basic public services”

“Hypothesis 1: Digital villages are positively associated with rural basic public services delivery.”

“3.6. The regional heterogeneity of the relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services”

“5. Empirical analysis and results” section:

“5.5. Regression analysis” section (see Line 460-464, Page 13 for details): “To verify whether digital villages affect rural basic public services, a regression analysis was performed between the DVI and RBPS. Table 6 further highlights the positively associated relationship between DVI and RBPS. (β = 0.005，P < 0.001), thus further verifying the research hypothesis H1. The collinearity diagnosis results show that there is no collinearity between the independent variables (VIF < 5)”

“5.6. Heterogeneity analysis” section (see Line 480-485, Page 13 for details): “The results in Table 7 demonstrated that the positive effect of digital villages on the level of rural basic public services delivery is mainly observed in eastern counties (β = 0.199, P < 0.001), but this positive effect is not observed in central (β = 0.068, P = 0.123) and western counties (β = 0.043, P = 0.269). In sum, the effects of digital villages on the level of rural basic public services delivery varies depending on the region of China, and the research hypothesis H2 is verified.”

“6. Conclusions and implications” section:

“6.1. Discussions” section (see Line 493-557, Page 14-15 for details): “However, theoretical mechanism analysis and empirical studies on the relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery remain limited. To fill this gap, this study analyses the theoretical mechanism of digital villages to enhance rural basic public services delivery from the perspectives of digital governance theory. To verify the proposed hypotheses, this study employs the entropy method, correlation analysis, regression analysis and heterogeneity analysis to verify the positively associated relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery based on macro data reported in 2018. Three key findings are obtained: 1) DVI and rural RBPS have large differences among regions; 2) China’s digital villages is positively associated with rural basic public services delivery; 3) The positive effect of digital villages on rural basic public services delivery is mainly observed in eastern counties but is not observed in central and western counties.”

“As its main contribution, this study supplements the existing research by offering a theoretical explanation from the perspective of digital governance theory and large-sample empirical testing, thus providing a highly comprehensive and rigorous theoretical basis and evidence for the positively associated relationship between digital villages and rural basic public services delivery.”

“Second, the construction of digital villages is positively associated with rural basic public services delivery at the overall level.”

“Third, from a regional perspective, the heterogeneity analysis results indicate that  the positively associated relationship between digital villages and basic public services delivery is primarily observed in relatively developed eastern regions and is largely absent in central and western regions given their relatively low levels of economic and social development.”

“6.2. Conclusions” section (see Line 585-587, Page 15 for details): “China’s Digital villages construction is positively associated with the overall level of basic rural public services. However, this positively associated relationship is not clearly observed in the central and western regions.”

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf