Economic effects of conversion from county (or county-level city) to municipal district in China

Biao Zhao; Xu Xi

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0272267

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 10, 2022
19 May 2022 Decision Letter - Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Editor PONE-D-22-10605System transformation and city development: research on economic growth performance of district for county (county-level cities) in ChinaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. biao zhao, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 03 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 3. PLOS requires an ORCID iD for the corresponding author in Editorial Manager on papers submitted after December 6th, 2016. Please ensure that you have an ORCID iD and that it is validated in Editorial Manager. To do this, go to ‘Update my Information’ (in the upper left-hand corner of the main menu), and click on the Fetch/Validate link next to the ORCID field. This will take you to the ORCID site and allow you to create a new iD or authenticate a pre-existing iD in Editorial Manager. Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ 4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table. Additional Editor Comments: Dear author for the shake the improve of your manuscript I suggest to follow the comment of the reviewers. The manuscript has potentials, but is necessary to make improvement. Is necessary to justify why the data set is old. With regard to references and citations, they do not conform to the journal's criteria. The references must be numbered [1] and in the citations put the number. I note that it has 16 references and that is very poor for the type of article they write. I suggest adding more quotes at least 40. I sugesst the folowing references: [1] González, C. A. Z. (2011). Technical efficiency of organic fertilizer in small farms of Nicaragua: 1998-2005. African Journal of Business Management, 5(3), 967-973. Available from publons.com/p/11272633/ [2] Dios-Palomares, R. (2015). 7. Analysis of the Efficiency of Farming Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean Considering Environmental Issues. Revista Cientifica-Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, 25(1). Available in publons.com/p/3106827/ [3] Zuniga González, C. A. (2020). Total factor productivity growth in agriculture: Malmquist index analysis of 14 countries, 1979-2008. Revista Electrónica De Investigación En Ciencias Económicas, 8(16), 68–97. https://doi.org/10.5377/reice.v8i16.10661 [4] Dios-Palomares, R., Lopez de Pablo, D., Diz Pérez, J., Jurado Bello, M., Guijarro, A., Martinez-Paz, J., & Zúniga González, C. (2015). Environmental aspects in the analysis of efficiency. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 1(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v1i1.2143 [5] López-González, Álvaro, Zúniga-González, C., López, M., Quirós-Madrigal, O., Colón-García, A., Navas-Calderón, J., Martínez-Andrades, E., & Rangel-Cura, R. (2016). State of the art for measuring productivity and technical efficiency in Latin America: Nicaragua Case. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 1(2), 76-100. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v1i2.2478 [6] Zuniga-Gonzalez, Carlos Alberto (2021), “Total factor productivity in the INTA Chinandega rice variety”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/76m7p7mvsg.2 https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/76m7p7mvsg/2 [7] Figueroa-Ugalde, J. H., Lagarda-Leyva, E. A., & Celaya-Figueroa, R. (2022). Fundamentos de la sustentabilidad en la bioeconomía y su relación con las teorías administrativas. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 8(15), 1806–1821. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v8i15.14183 [8] Zúniga-González, C. A., López, M. R., Icabaceta, J. L., Vivas-Viachica, E. A., & Blanco-Orozco, N. (2022). Epistemología de la Bioeconomia. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 8(15), 1786–1796. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v8i15.13986 [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Having read the manuscript, the manuscript has some potentials that the readership will find insightful but I have some reservations which I will want the author(s) to work on: 1) the INTRODUCTION need to be properly situated by pointing out (i) the justification for the study, (ii) gaps in the literature, (iii) scope justification, (iv) are the outcomes generalisable. 2) more discourse on the empirical approach and technique. Why is this technique used? Is it the best method that addresses the objectives of the study? 3) recast the Policy Recommendations 4) some minor grammatical and editorial corrections are required Reviewer #2: - the paper does not show concrete policy recommendations - the dataset is old, not consider relevant factors that may contribute to policy development - the author did not test for flexible models. True effects to account for the special characteristics of each administrative unit ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r001
Revision 1
13 Jun 2022 Author Response Dear Editor: Thanks to the editorial teachers and external audit experts put forward valuable opinions, so that this paper benefited a lot. According to the comments and suggestions of reviewers, this paper is modified as follows: Reviewer #1: 1.amendments: “the INTRODUCTION need to be properly situated by pointing out (i) the justification for the study, (ii) gaps in the literature, (iii) scope justification, (iv) are the outcomes generalisable.” Modification Description: “Thanks for the comments of the experts on this article. The introduction has been modified according to the suggestions of the external audit experts, ensuring that the justification for the study and other contents are included.” 2.amendments: “more discourse on the empirical approach and technique. Why is this technique used? Is it the best method that addresses the objectives of the study?” Modification Description: It has been modified according to relevant requirements. Positivism Model and Data Source can be seen in detail. In the part of research methods, “DID comes from the aggregate data model of econometrics, which is a widely used econometric method in policy analysis and engineering evaluation. It is mainly applied to evaluate the impact degree of a certain event or policy in mixed cross section data set. The dual difference method does not require the experimental group and the control group to be completely consistent, there may be some differences between the two groups, allowing selection according to individual characteristics, as long as the characteristics do not change with time, which is the biggest advantage of DID. That is to partially alleviate the “selection bias” -induced endomutation. Therefore, this study chooses DID method to study RDC.” In the part of research time, due to the lag in the effect of administrative division adjustment, the RDC gradually entered the stage of strict control after 2017, and China's economy was greatly affected by the SINO-US trade war and the COVID-19 epidemic, the effect of administrative division adjustment was affected to varying degrees. So the research phase of this paper is thus identified as the cities undergoing the adjustment of administrative division of municipal districts nationwide from 1998 to 2016, which is the period when municipal district for county (county-level city) happened frequently. 3.amendments: “recast the Policy Recommendations” Modification Description: It has been modified according to relevant requirements. See Conclusion and Discussion for details. It includes the following contents. “The adjustment of administrative divisions of municipal districts is a multi-disciplinary systematic project with dynamic, complex and comprehensive characteristics. It needs to optimize the layout according to the actual development needs of the state and local areas on the basis of following the differences and changing trends of the spatial distribution of economic factors. China's experience shows that in the process of rapid urbanization development, first, we should attach great importance to the important significance of administrative division adjustment to the governance of metropolitan areas. Timely promotion of administrative division adjustment is beneficial to reduce the cost of urbanization development and improve the governance efficiency of metropolitan areas, which is also an important experience of rapid urbanization development in the past 40 years of reform and opening up. The rest of the world should learn from this experience in light of their national conditions. The second is to promote the spatial optimization of municipal districts based on the thinking of urban agglomeration. The scientific setting of urban agglomeration scale structure can effectively release the potential of regional spatial development and improve the development efficiency of urban system. Third, the adjustment of municipal districts should focus on the development intensity and development potential of cities. It is necessary to determine whether the central urban area has urgent practical needs. Only when the development of the central urban area is restricted (under normal circumstances, the development intensity of the municipal district is above 15%) and the development intensity and development potential are both large, can it be necessary to set up new municipal districts and expand the area of the municipal district.” 4.amendments: “some minor grammatical and editorial corrections are required” Modification Description: Modifications have been made as required, including title, text, references, formatting, grammatical and punctuation errors, etc. Reviewer #2: 1.amendments: “the paper does not show concrete policy recommendations” Modification Description: It has been modified as required. 2.amendments: “the dataset is old, not consider relevant factors that may contribute to policy development” Modification Description: It has been explained in the paper. The adjustment of administrative division itself is a policy factor. This paper mainly discusses the effect of the policy on economic and social development. 3.amendments: “the author did not test for flexible models. True effects to account for the special characteristics of each administrative unit” Modification Description: This paper has considered the difference of policy effects under different city sizes, different distribution regions and different development intensities. Other factors will be further detailed and discussed in future studies. Opinions of the editorial Department: 1.amendments: “Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming.” Modification Description: It has been modified as required. 2.amendments: Questions about financial Disclosure Modification Description: It has been explained in the article and in the cover letter. 3.amendments: ORCID iD matters Modification Description: It has been Modified and perfected. https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-7248-8891 4.amendments: “We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Tables 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.” Modification Description: It has been modified in the paper, and each table has been marked in the paper. 5.amendments: Problems with references Modification Description: It has been revised as required, systematic review of relevant studies has been carried out, and the number of references has been increased to 41. Finally, I would like to thank the reviewers and editorial department for their valuable comments. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r002
10 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Editor PONE-D-22-10605R1Economic effects of conversion from county (or county-level city) to municipal district in ChinaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. zhao, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 24 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. Additional Editor Comments: Dear, I can see you have improved, however, reviewer 2 insists on Reject, so I need you to make a minor revision and focus it on reviewer 2 observations. Also, I insist on suggesting to you the following references, I think that section methodology can help in your review (minor review). Regarding observation of reviewer 2 I need your minor review and comments. [1] González, C. A. Z. (2011). Technical efficiency of organic fertilizer in small farms of Nicaragua: 1998-2005. African Journal of Business Management, 5(3), 967-973. Available from publons.com/p/11272633/ [2] Dios-Palomares, R. (2015). 7. Analysis of the Efficiency of Farming Systems in Latin America and the Caribbean Considering Environmental Issues. Revista Cientifica-Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias, 25(1). Available in publons.com/p/3106827/ [3] Zuniga González, C. A. (2020). Total factor productivity growth in agriculture: Malmquist index analysis of 14 countries, 1979-2008. Revista Electrónica De Investigación En Ciencias Económicas, 8(16), 68–97. https://doi.org/10.5377/reice.v8i16.10661 [4] Dios-Palomares, R., Lopez de Pablo, D., Diz Pérez, J., Jurado Bello, M., Guijarro, A., Martinez-Paz, J., & Zúniga González, C. (2015). Environmental aspects in the analysis of efficiency. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 1(1), 88-95. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v1i1.2143 [5] López-González, Álvaro, Zúniga-González, C., López, M., Quirós-Madrigal, O., Colón-García, A., Navas-Calderón, J., Martínez-Andrades, E., & Rangel-Cura, R. (2016). State of the art for measuring productivity and technical efficiency in Latin America: Nicaragua Case. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 1(2), 76-100. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v1i2.2478 [6] Zuniga-Gonzalez, Carlos Alberto (2021), “Total factor productivity in the INTA Chinandega rice variety”, Mendeley Data, V2, doi: 10.17632/76m7p7mvsg.2 https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/76m7p7mvsg/2 [7] Figueroa-Ugalde, J. H., Lagarda-Leyva, E. A., & Celaya-Figueroa, R. (2022). Foundations of sustainability in the bioeconomy and its relationship with administrative theories. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 8(15), 1806–1821. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v8i15.14183 [8] Zúniga-González, C. A., López, M. R., Icabaceta, J. L., Vivas-Viachica, E. A., & Blanco-Orozco, N. (2022). Bioeconomy Espitemology. Rev. Iberoam. Bioecon. Cambio Clim., 8(15), 1786–1796. https://doi.org/10.5377/ribcc.v8i15.13986 [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Having read the revised version, I am satisfied with corrections made by the author(s). I find the manuscript clearer to understand with clearly stated objectives and findings. The Policy Recommendations are also relatable to the findings of the study. Reviewer #2: - The document uses old dataset that results in unclear policy implications - The paper does not compare the current situation with estimated results - There is no discussion made with the literature with the results ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r003
Revision 2
13 Jul 2022 Author Response Dear Editor: Thanks to the editorial teachers and external audit experts put forward valuable opinions, so that this paper benefited a lot. According to the comments and suggestions of reviewers, this paper is modified as follows: Reviewer #1: amendments: “All comments have been addressed.” Modification Description: “The article was further proofread and revised.” Reviewer #2: 1.amendments: “The document uses old dataset that results in unclear policy implications.” Modification Description: The article has made relevant explanation. The reasons for using 1998-2016 as the research period mainly include: first, in 1997, China suspended the work of withdrawing counties and establishing cities, and the number of withdrawing counties and cities began to increase greatly; Second, after 2017, the withdrawal of counties (cities) into districts began to be gradually tightened, and gradually entered the "stage of strict control"; Third, since 2019, due to the impact of COVID-19, the economic situation has been stagnant, which has had a certain impact on the adjustment effect of administrative divisions; Fourth, referring to relevant literature, because the adjustment effect appears with a certain lag, most of the data in the past period of time is not used for analysis. So the research phase of this paper is thus identified as the cities undergoing the adjustment of administrative division of municipal districts nationwide from 1998 to 2016, which is the period when municipal district for county (county-level city) happened frequently. 2.amendments: “The paper does not compare the current situation with estimated results” Modification Description: This article has been modified as required. In the empirical research part, the relevant cases of Zhengzhou and Harbin are added to prove the relevant estimation results with the actual situation. “When the city is in a state of rapid development, urban renewal speed will be accelerated, the existing city capital (such as infrastructure) depreciation is forced to shorten time, leading to urban renovation costs (switching costs) has increased dramatically, and fast for the development of the economy and municipal district area of the city is too small, will increase speed of development cost. Zhengzhou in Henan Province, for example, covers an area of only 1010 square kilometers, and its development intensity is close to 50%. As the development space of the central urban area is becoming increasingly tight, which is not good for the spatial layout of industries and public services, the high density of facilities leads to the problem that many newly built facilities need to be removed in the urban renewal process, such as short-lived bus stations, short-lived overpasses and short-lived public toilets. Another example is Harbin, which in recent years has promoted a large number of county (city) reform to establish districts, resulting in a municipal area of more than 10,000 square kilometers. Due to the urban management system of municipal districts, there is a large number of agricultural population, and counties and county-level cities can enjoy poverty alleviation and agricultural benefit policies such as subsidies for livestock breeding and agricultural machinery purchase, but municipal districts cannot enjoy them. This makes such municipal district public service levels cannot be compared with the central city, economic development and not equal to counties and county-level cities, even in accordance with the actual demand cannot enjoy benefit farming policy, one, two, three industry development have encountered difficulties, caused by a slowing economy, low level of urban construction and population agglomeration problems such as weak, This is also an important reason for Harbin's economic slowdown in recent years.This shows that the development intensity of municipal districts should be taken into full consideration when promoting the withdrawal of counties (cities) into districts, as either too early or too late is not conducive to the improvement of economic and social benefits.” 3.amendments: “There is no discussion made with the literature with the results.” Modification Description: This article has been modified as required. It is mainly reflected in the basic regression results, and relevant literature is added for comparative analysis. “The analysis results are consistent with previous studies[29,42].” In addition, countermeasures and suggestions were modified in this study. Opinions of the editorial Department: amendments: “Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript.” Modification Description: It has been modified as required. Compared with the previous version, 25 references are deleted and 8 references 32-38 are added. Finally, I would like to thank the reviewers and editorial department for their valuable comments. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r004
18 Jul 2022 Decision Letter - Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Editor Economic effects of conversion from county (or county-level city) to municipal district in China PONE-D-22-10605R2 Dear Dr. biao zhao, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Ph.D Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Dear authors, Congratulations. I have checked and read your improvements. My decision is accept. Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r005
Formally Accepted
2 Sep 2022 Acceptance Letter - Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González, Editor PONE-D-22-10605R2 Economic effects of conversion from county (or county-level city) to municipal district in China Dear Dr. Zhao: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Prof. Carlos Alberto Zúniga-González Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272267.r006

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