Multi-Agent Evolutionary Game Analysis of Group Panic Buying in China during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper analyses panic behavior of public when facing with some dangerous situation using the methods of evolutionary game theory. The authors focus of three types of different players, namely, governments, rumor-spreaders, and the people. I think, there are several points that should be addressed before publication. Please see below for specific comments.

 Table 2, which shows the payoff structure of the game, is across the pages, which reduces the readability.

 Please check the line 344. Is the term (1-2x) in the right-hand-side of the equation correct?

 None of the figures do not have captions and some of the figures do not have even titles. I am not sure if this is o.k. for an article in Mathematics. Please check “Instruction of authors”.

 In figure1, the plane in which dx/dt=0 in the state space {(x,y,z): 0<x,y,z,<1}. Since the equation of the plane is given by y=(Cg-W-K)/omega (constant) according to line 345, the plane must be orthogonal to x-axis and z-axis. But it does not seem so in figure1. I wonder why. Can it be that the figures are wrong?

 The evolution of “the state of the society” (x,y,z) is given by a set of differential equations {dx/dt=F(x,y,z), dy/dt=G(x,y,z), dz/dt=H(x,y,z)}. But actually in the manuscript, the three equations are analyzed separately and independently according to the pages 8-12. As a result, for example, when variable x is anlyzed the other variables are assumed to be constant. I cannot see why the authors analyzed the system in this way and what we (the readers) can learn from the results of the analysis.

 This is related to the above comment. I cannot understand the statement that “when y<(Cg-W-K)/omega, the x=0 is the evolutionarily stable strategy”, because y is not a parameter but evolves according to the evolution equation. Moreover “x=0” is not a point but a plane in the state space  {(x,y,z): 0<x,y,z,<1}. Do you mean that the whole plane (the set of points) are fixed points of the replicator equation system?

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The current article uses game theory to study the consequences of public panic when
faced with a risky situation. The authors focus on three different types of actors,
namely governments, rumormongers, and the public. The abstract contains
unexplained mathema+cal nota+on that should be omitted. Also, the introduction is
too detailed and, as a result, does not summarize the situation well. Instead, the
conclusions should be less detailed, shorter, and easier to read.
Finally, although the research question is interesting, there is room to improve the
mo+va+on and the main contribution of the ar+cle to the current literature. Some
important references are missing. Considering them, the ar+cle's contribu+on is not
conspicuous enough.
References:
- Shan, H., & Pi, W. (2023). Mitigating panic buying behavior in the epidemic: An
evolutionary game perspective. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 73,
103364.
- Yuan Y, Du L, Li X, Chen F. An Evolutionary Game Model of the Supply Decisions
between GNPOs and Hospitals during a Public Health Emergency. Sustainability. 2022;
14(3):1156. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031156
- Xu, R., Yan, C., Wang, C., & Zhao, H. (2023). The Game Analysis among Governments,
the Public and Green Smart Supply Chain Enterprises in Necessity Purchase and Supply
during COVID-19 Pandemic. Sustainability, 15(9), 7229.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

abstract contains unexplained model/ notation like E1(0,0,0) etc. Mathematical notation should be omitted from the abstract unless necessary. It is much better to explain what is happening in words

The English is completely wrong in the model section. The table 1 shows "notation", not "assumption". I am 99% sure that the authors did not mean "hypothesis" but "assumptions". I have reviewed similar papers in the past and was met by "but paper XYZ published in mathematics used the same language" To that I can only say that being published does not mean that it is correct and the authors should get the paper edited for English (by someone who knows math).

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors improved the manuscript sufficiently according to my comments. Therefore the manuscript can now be accepted for publication, in my opinion.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors has addressed the shortcoming of the previous version of the paper.