The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Türkiye: The role of COVID–19, livestock imports, and energy prices

Gurkan Bozma; Faruk Urak; Abdulbaki Bilgic; Wojciech J. Florkowski

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0282611

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 22, 2022
19 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - Mohammed Al-Mahish, Editor PONE-D-22-29212The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Turkey: The role of COVID-19, livestock imports, and energy pricesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Urak, 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. ============================== Specifically, the paper was assessed by three reviewers, and they all agreed that the results are not appropriately presented.The revised paper should follow PLOS ONE's format including referencing style. Also, the language of the paper needs proofreading. 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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, Mohammed Al-Mahish 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: "No funding resources" At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. 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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 Reviewer #3: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 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: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 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: No Reviewer #3: 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: The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Turkey: The role of COVID-19, livestock imports, and energy prices Summary: The paper addresses the impact of three variables (Covid-19, livestock import, and Energy prices) on beef and lamb prices in Turkey. Using data covering the period of April 2006 through February 2022, the study employs a VAR(1) asymmetric BEKK GARCH model for empirical analysis. The study finds different effects of different variables and offers some policy recommendations. The paper addresses an important issue with an appropriate method. The results are interesting with sound discussion in the context of previous literature. The policy recommendations are relevant. The paper is well-structured, well-written, and well-organized. Major issue 1. Some part of the method section is not self-explanatory and lacks some relevant information, which makes it hard for the reader to follow along. The reader is left alone in that regard. For example, it is not clear how the Covid period was singled out from the data period of 2006 and 2022.How was the COVID-19-induced uncertainties incorporated into the model? Was a dummy variable used(like the import variable, which is mentioned in this section)? If so, the method section does not indicate it. I could understand it after seeing the results in table 3. This should be clarified in the method section. Minor 1. Line 39, “food safety” should be replaced by “food security” 2. Line 228, What do E and I denote for? 3. The official name of the country changed from “Turkey” to “Turkiye”. The new name could be used. Reviewer #2: • The study presents an original research. • The organization of the manuscript lacks integrity. Authors should revise the article accordingly. • Abstract should include less details. The policy implications should be limited within the scope of key findings. The language should be carefully reviewed for clear statements. • It is hard to comprehend the research objectives in the article. In lines (54-56) they stated that “The present study examines the pass-through of price uncertainty in Turkish red meat markets (beef carcass and lamb carcass-high protein foods), gasoline (energy) market, and in the context of meat and livestock import decisions during COVID-19”. The authors must clearly state their objectives. What is the pass-through of price uncertainty and livestock import decisions? How the authors measured it? How they defined and measured the uncertainty, returns are confusing. • The authors should provide more evidence that their paper contributes the existing literature. In lines (56-60), the authors states “The study is first in examining the link between red meat import decisions, effects of the gasoline market, and Covid-19 on the volatility of red meat markets in Turkey using the Baba, Engle, Kraft, and Kroner (BEKK) generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model (thereafter, BEKK-GARCH)”. They suggest that using an existing econometric method (BEKK-GARCH) is a novelty. But they did not provide enough evidence about the compatibility, importance, and superiority of this specific method. • Despite studying a specific country, manuscript lacks a brief discussion on the governmental policies for the sector in question. Particularly, the policy implications of the article recommend the government for taxation and subsidies. • The authors should use more understandable abbreviations for variables in the tables. • Conclusions are partly presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data. • The article is poorly presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. • The manuscript has grammatical errors and unnecessary wordings. Several grammatical errors must be corrected and the authors must avoid unnecessary wordings. The language of the manuscript must be carefully revised in order to have a clear understanding. • The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. • The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability. Reviewer #3: The authors provide a well-stated and well-performed analysis. However, I have some concerns: Caution is needed for the correlation results. If data do not follow the normal distribution instead of Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation should be employed. In general, authors should be more analytical in presenting their results. ****** 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 Reviewer #3: Yes: Anthony N. Rezitis ******** [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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Feedback.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282611.r001
Revision 1
7 Feb 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Turkey: The role of COVID-19, livestock imports, and energy prices Summary: The paper addresses the impact of three variables (Covid-19, livestock import, and Energy prices) on beef and lamb prices in Turkey. Using data covering the period of April 2006 through February 2022, the study employs a VAR(1) asymmetric BEKK GARCH model for empirical analysis. The study finds different effects of different variables and offers some policy recommendations. The paper addresses an important issue with an appropriate method. The results are interesting with sound discussion in the context of previous literature. The policy recommendations are relevant. The paper is well-structured, well-written, and well-organized. Answer: Thank you for the favorable comments. Major issue 1. Some part of the method section is not self-explanatory and lacks some relevant information, which makes it hard for the reader to follow along. The reader is left alone in that regard. For example, it is not clear how the Covid period was singled out from the data period of 2006 and 2022. How were the COVID-19-induced uncertainties incorporated into the model? Was a dummy variable used(like the import variable, which is mentioned in this section)? If so, the method section does not indicate it. I could understand it after seeing the results in table 3. This should be clarified in the method section. Minor 1. Line 39, “food safety” should be replaced by “food security” Answer: Thanks. It has been corrected. 2. Line 228, What do E and I denote for? Answer: Thank you for your careful reading. The omission has been fixed. 3. The official name of the country changed from “Turkey” to “Turkiye”. The new name could be used. Answer: It is true, as the United Nations declared Turkey as Türkiye. Thank you for the correction. Reviewer #2: • The study presents an original research. • The organization of the manuscript lacks integrity. Authors should revise the article accordingly. Answer: The manuscript has been revised and we hope meets the expectations. Thank you for the comment. • Abstract should include less details. The policy implications should be limited within the scope of key findings. The language should be carefully reviewed for clear statements. Answer: The abstract was rewritten following your comment. • It is hard to comprehend the research objectives in the article. In lines (54-56) they stated that “The present study examines the pass-through of price uncertainty in Turkish red meat markets (beef carcass and lamb carcass-high protein foods), gasoline (energy) market, and in the context of meat and livestock import decisions during COVID-19”. The authors must clearly state their objectives. What is the pass-through of price uncertainty and livestock import decisions? How the authors measured it? How they defined and measured the uncertainty, returns are confusing. Answer: We are grateful to the Referee for bringing those issues to our attention. At the Referee’s request, we rewrote the introduction by making the objectives straightforward and more understandable – see the text highlighted in yellow. Also, information about the price volatility has been detailed in footnote #1 in the Materials and Methods section. • The authors should provide more evidence that their paper contributes the existing literature. In lines (56-60), the authors states “The study is first in examining the link between red meat import decisions, effects of the gasoline market, and Covid-19 on the volatility of red meat markets in Turkey using the Baba, Engle, Kraft, and Kroner (BEKK) generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model (thereafter, BEKK-GARCH)”. They suggest that using an existing econometric method (BEKK-GARCH) is a novelty. But they did not provide enough evidence about the compatibility, importance, and superiority of this specific method. Answer: We are grateful for the comments and have updated the relevant section (Introduction) as requested, and listed the paper’s contribution. The revised text now includes an explanation of the superiority of the GARCH method in the Materials and Methods section. The added text is highlighted in yellow. • Despite studying a specific country, manuscript lacks a brief discussion on the governmental policies for the sector in question. Particularly, the policy implications of the article recommend the government for taxation and subsidies. Answer: We are grateful for the comment and have updated the relevant section. Please see the data section and the text colored in yellow. • The authors should use more understandable abbreviations for variables in the tables. Answer: Thank you -the abbreviations and tables have been rechecked and corrected. • Conclusions are partly presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data. Answer: We are grateful for this comment. We have revised the relevant section at the request of the referee (see the text highlighted in yellow). • The article is poorly presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. Answer: The revised paper was edited by a professional English editor. We thank you for the comment. • The manuscript has grammatical errors and unnecessary wordings. Several grammatical errors must be corrected and the authors must avoid unnecessary wordings. The language of the manuscript must be carefully revised in order to have a clear understanding. Answer: The revised paper was edited by a professional English editor. • The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. Answer: We thank you. • The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability. Answer: We thank you. Reviewer #3: The authors provide a well-stated and well-performed analysis. However, I have some concerns: Caution is needed for the correlation results. If data do not follow the normal distribution instead of Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation should be employed. Answer: We are grateful to the Referee for bringing the issue to our attention; the necessary corrections have been made and included in footnote 2 as thanks to the referee. In general, authors should be more analytical in presenting their results. Answer: All presented results were reviewed, and integrity was ensured in the text. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Responses to Reviewers Comments February 1 2023.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282611.r002
13 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Mohammed Al-Mahish, Editor PONE-D-22-29212R1The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Türkiye: The role of COVID–19, livestock imports, and energy pricesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Urak, 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. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR Comments:Please revise the manuscript according to PLOS ONE's formatting and referencing style. The references are not written in accordance with the journal's style, and you can use a referencing software such as Mendely to help you formatting your references in accordance with PLOS ONE's style. Also, the clean copy of the paper should be free from highlights. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 30 2023 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, Mohammed Al-Mahish 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. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [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.0282611.r003
Revision 2
14 Feb 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Turkey: The role of COVID-19, livestock imports, and energy prices Summary: The paper addresses the impact of three variables (Covid-19, livestock import, and Energy prices) on beef and lamb prices in Turkey. Using data covering the period of April 2006 through February 2022, the study employs a VAR(1) asymmetric BEKK GARCH model for empirical analysis. The study finds different effects of different variables and offers some policy recommendations. The paper addresses an important issue with an appropriate method. The results are interesting with sound discussion in the context of previous literature. The policy recommendations are relevant. The paper is well-structured, well-written, and well-organized. Answer: Thank you for the favorable comments. Major issue 1. Some part of the method section is not self-explanatory and lacks some relevant information, which makes it hard for the reader to follow along. The reader is left alone in that regard. For example, it is not clear how the Covid period was singled out from the data period of 2006 and 2022. How were the COVID-19-induced uncertainties incorporated into the model? Was a dummy variable used(like the import variable, which is mentioned in this section)? If so, the method section does not indicate it. I could understand it after seeing the results in table 3. This should be clarified in the method section. Minor 1. Line 39, “food safety” should be replaced by “food security” Answer: Thanks. It has been corrected. 2. Line 228, What do E and I denote for? Answer: Thank you for your careful reading. The omission has been fixed. 3. The official name of the country changed from “Turkey” to “Turkiye”. The new name could be used. Answer: It is true, as the United Nations declared Turkey as Türkiye. Thank you for the correction. Reviewer #2: • The study presents an original research. • The organization of the manuscript lacks integrity. Authors should revise the article accordingly. Answer: The manuscript has been revised and we hope meets the expectations. Thank you for the comment. • Abstract should include less details. The policy implications should be limited within the scope of key findings. The language should be carefully reviewed for clear statements. Answer: The abstract was rewritten following your comment. • It is hard to comprehend the research objectives in the article. In lines (54-56) they stated that “The present study examines the pass-through of price uncertainty in Turkish red meat markets (beef carcass and lamb carcass-high protein foods), gasoline (energy) market, and in the context of meat and livestock import decisions during COVID-19”. The authors must clearly state their objectives. What is the pass-through of price uncertainty and livestock import decisions? How the authors measured it? How they defined and measured the uncertainty, returns are confusing. Answer: We are grateful to the Referee for bringing those issues to our attention. At the Referee’s request, we rewrote the introduction by making the objectives straightforward and more understandable – see the text highlighted in yellow. Also, information about the price volatility has been detailed in footnote #1 in the Materials and Methods section. • The authors should provide more evidence that their paper contributes the existing literature. In lines (56-60), the authors states “The study is first in examining the link between red meat import decisions, effects of the gasoline market, and Covid-19 on the volatility of red meat markets in Turkey using the Baba, Engle, Kraft, and Kroner (BEKK) generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) model (thereafter, BEKK-GARCH)”. They suggest that using an existing econometric method (BEKK-GARCH) is a novelty. But they did not provide enough evidence about the compatibility, importance, and superiority of this specific method. Answer: We are grateful for the comments and have updated the relevant section (Introduction) as requested, and listed the paper’s contribution. The revised text now includes an explanation of the superiority of the GARCH method in the Materials and Methods section. The added text is highlighted in yellow. • Despite studying a specific country, manuscript lacks a brief discussion on the governmental policies for the sector in question. Particularly, the policy implications of the article recommend the government for taxation and subsidies. Answer: We are grateful for the comment and have updated the relevant section. Please see the data section and the text colored in yellow. • The authors should use more understandable abbreviations for variables in the tables. Answer: Thank you -the abbreviations and tables have been rechecked and corrected. • Conclusions are partly presented in an appropriate fashion and are supported by the data. Answer: We are grateful for this comment. We have revised the relevant section at the request of the referee (see the text highlighted in yellow). • The article is poorly presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English. Answer: The revised paper was edited by a professional English editor. We thank you for the comment. • The manuscript has grammatical errors and unnecessary wordings. Several grammatical errors must be corrected and the authors must avoid unnecessary wordings. The language of the manuscript must be carefully revised in order to have a clear understanding. Answer: The revised paper was edited by a professional English editor. • The research meets all applicable standards for the ethics of experimentation and research integrity. Answer: We thank you. • The article adheres to appropriate reporting guidelines and community standards for data availability. Answer: We thank you. Reviewer #3: The authors provide a well-stated and well-performed analysis. However, I have some concerns: Caution is needed for the correlation results. If data do not follow the normal distribution instead of Pearson correlation, Spearman correlation should be employed. Answer: We are grateful to the Referee for bringing the issue to our attention; the necessary corrections have been made and included in footnote 2 as thanks to the referee. In general, authors should be more analytical in presenting their results. Answer: All presented results were reviewed, and integrity was ensured in the text. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282611.r004
20 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Mohammed Al-Mahish, Editor The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Türkiye: The role of COVID–19, livestock imports, and energy prices PONE-D-22-29212R2 Dear Dr. Urak, 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, Mohammed Al-Mahish Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282611.r005
Formally Accepted
3 Mar 2023 Acceptance Letter - Mohammed Al-Mahish, Editor PONE-D-22-29212R2 The volatility of beef and lamb prices in Türkiye: The role of COVID–19, livestock imports, and energy prices Dear Dr. Urak: 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. Mohammed Al-Mahish Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282611.r006

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