Assessing the Effect of Internet Indicators on Agri-Food Export Competitiveness

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 1)

Review of the paper titled „Assessing The Effect of Internet Indicators on Agri-Food Export Competitiveness”:

 You may add agenda of the paper at the end of introduction

-         Please verify if all publications that appear in the manuscript are in the reference list

-         At the end of the paper, enumerate potential limitations of your study stemming from the methods you use, sample selection, etc. You may comment on endogeneity i.e.

The paper explores how countries can boost their rural export capabilities and competitiveness (here through the Internet). The paper is well structured. The method the authors use is quite robust. The findings can be grounded in the presented research. Even though the changes (marked in colors) have not changed the paper significantly, I have read it with interest.  I opt for a minor revision.

Author Response

Thank for your reviews, we have already answered your review by attaching file (Reviewer 1 Round 2 Economies 2023.pdf)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

This study aims to examine the impact of internet-related indicators on the competitive standing of agri-food industries globally, and finds a positive impact of internet infrastructure and security and a negative impact of internet users. Compared to its first submission, I can see a substantial improvement. However, after reading the draft, I do not think my previous concerns are resolved. Hence, I cannot see a good possibility of publication. 

i. On topic.

Now that the author has expanded the discussion on RSCA, but the author still did not answer why RSCA as an indicator is important (for the reader of a general interested journal), or why don't use other indicators.

ii. On technique.

The problem of lack of causal inference still exists.

Further, for some technical part, such as selecting RE rather than FE, the reasoning is weak.

There is no sufficient robustness tests.

And again, the simulation is not well motivated.

English is fine. Minor editing is needed but does not bother reading.

Author Response

Thank for your reviews, we have already answered your reviews by attaching pdf file (Reviewer 2 Round 2 Economies 2023.pdf)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Thank you for inviting me to review this paper. After carefully reviewing this, I think that the paper has some interesting findings in connection with the suitable methodology. The data is abundant. I think that this paper can be considered for publication.

I have some comments for improving the quality of this paper.

1/ The introduction should summarize the main findings as well as disclosure the novelty of this paper.

2/ The literature review is quite poor. I think that the paper should have more recent studies on the relationship between internet indicators and agri-food export competitiveness or export competitiveness. Further, this section should be further showed the importance of doing this research.

3/ Section 3 should be "Data and methodology"

The data section should explain: the number of countries used in the paper, the time doing this research.

4/ Please explain why the minimum value of RSCA is -1?

5/ Table 2. Descriptive Statistics should show the original values. It will be better for the readers.

6/ The methodology should analyse the endogeneity problems, therefore, GMM should be considered.

7/ Table 4. Estimation of Regression should be analysed the autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity issues. Please refer to https://doi.org/10.3390/economies11020053

8/ The criteria of selecting the countries in the analysis?

9/ The limitations should be considered.

Minor revisions

Author Response

Thank you for your reviews, we have already answered your reviews by attaching file (Reviewer 3 Round 2 Economies 2023.pdf)

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

The authors have made substantial improvements based on the referees' comments, and have answered all my questions and concerns. Given the time requirement of the journal, I will not raise further questions to the author.

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Dear Sir

I agree with this version

Thank you

A minor revision

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of the paper titled „Assessing The Effect of Internet Indicators on Agri-Food Export Competitiveness” under consideration to the Economies journal:

Major issues:

-        Introduction: please state in a straightforward manner what the novelty of the paper is. At the end of the introduction you may write what the paper’s agenda is.

-        You may shortly write about the benefits of using RSCA over other RCA indices. A summary of different RCA indices you may find in: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-008-0213-3 or https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00168-006-0076-4

-        You should briefly state the benefits of using chosen methods over the other approaches, or the ones are usually used in similar studies. Is the Hausman test value significant? How do other researchers approach the analysed problem?

-        What about export specialisation, e.g. in agricultural products? It may unevenly affect the export success; compare https://doi.org/10.15678/EBER.2018.060205  

-        Since other unobserved factors in the models may influence the researched phenomenon, I would stick to FE results if the Hausman test is significant.

-        The results may be, to some extent, heterogeneous, as countries at different levels of economic development or internet access may be more or less prone to changes with internet access. Please comment on that issue.

Minor issues:

-        Revise the style of bibliography (abbrev. of authors names)

-        You may find an interesting review of theories of trade in the following book (chapter 1): https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9788395815041/html  together with ways of increasing trade competitiveness (chapter 12).

-        Line 122: “important thing” too many spaces

-        For me the correlation between Log(INTit) and Log(GDPit) is high

Outcome:

-        I recommend a minor revision.

Reviewer 2 Report

This study aims to examine the impact of internet-related indicators on the competitive standing of agri-food industries globally. Using a cross-country data set, the author find a positive impact of internet infrastructure and security and a negative impact of internet users. The paper sheds lights upon an important angle, i.e., the relation between internet development and agriculture. However, I have some major concerns regarding the paper.

i. The theoretical foundation between internet and agriculture development is not clear. The author should either refer to existing literature or establish a model to explain.

ii. In the first part, the author run a regression and show some correlations. However, the result does not imply any causal inferences, which significantly weakens then contribution of this paper and the following policy suggestions. 

iii. Also, there is no robustness tests. Given the complexity of the estimates (say, measurement errors, functional form dependence, etc.) I cannot fully believe the result.

iv. In the second part of the paper, a continent-based simulation is implemented to estimate what will be the future outcomes of RSCA. However, the detail of the simulation method is not explicitly discussed, and again, the result is not convincing.

The writing is understandable, but there are some typos and expressions that are not so idiomatic.