PONE-D-22-25225An empirical analysis of the impact of Chinese government investment on high-quality economic development——A study based on Spatial Dubin ModelPLOS ONE

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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: Title: An empirical analysis of the impact of Chinese government investment on high-quality economic development——A study based on Spatial Dubin Model

Manuscript Number: PONE-D-22-25225

Journal: PLOS ONE

It is my pleasure to review the manuscript for the journal. In this work, the authors assessed the economic high-quality development index system using the principal component analysis, and then investigated the impact of impact of the government’s investment in the three industries on the high-quality development of regional economy by using the spatial Dubin model. The work presented is relevant to the Journal's field. The manuscript has got some potential. I would like to congratulate the author for a considerable amount of work that they have done. Especially, the authors uncovered that government investment in the secondary industry can enhance innovation, while the “crowding out effect” harms the openness and the sharing, discouraging high-quality economic development. This manuscript has provided a new case to better understanding of the impact of country risks, renewable energy, trade openness and urbanization on ecological sustainability. However, the manuscript needs further improved before to be accepted for publication. The reviewer has listed some specific comments that might be helpful of the author to further enhance the quality of the manuscript. Please consider the particular comments listed below.

Comment 1: Abstract. The abstract is well-structured and well-written. However, it should underscore the scientific value added of your paper in your abstract, rather than others.

Comment 2: section of Introduction. As pointed out in the reports of World Bank, UNEP and others, the COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected and changed the global and regional sustainability issues. Therefore, this section should not ignore the impact of the pandemic on carbon emission. Please consider citing following paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138915. Added these citations will certainly improve the practical significance of the research of this article.

Comment 3: section of literature review. The novelty of this paper should be further justified by highlighting main contributions to the existing literature. This could be clearly presented in the Literature review related work. Please consider please consider citing following papers e.g., (i) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123838;(ii) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2021.02.031; (iii) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2021.103382; (iv) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2022.114575. There has already been a large number of literatures related to the panel data analysis and panel data model. There is a need to better elaborate the contribution of the work to the existing literature.

Comment 4: section of Variable selection and model construction The detailed information of Variable selection is impressive. However, it would be better to further highlight your improvement of the method and your innovation in methods.

Comment 5: sections of Empirical finding and Discussion. This section is well-structured. However, it would be better to discuss what your findings are different from the past works.

Comment 6: section of Conclusion and Policy Implication. Please make sure your conclusions' section underscore the scientific value added of your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results, as indicated previously. Basically, you should enhance your contributions, limitations, underscore the scientific value added of your paper, and/or the applicability of your findings/results and future study in this session.

Comment 7: There are still some occasional grammar errors through the revised manuscript especially the article ''the'', ''a'' and ''an'' is missing in many places, please make a spellchecking in addition to these minor issues. In addition, some sentences are too long to be easy to read. It is recommended to change to short sentences, which are easier to read.

Comment 8: References. Please check the references in the text and the list; You should update the reference.

Comment 9: line number is missing, please add it.

Reviewer #2: This study first establishes an index system for high-quality economic development, and examines the effect of government investment on high-quality economic development with Spatial Dubin Model.

I think this is an interesting topic. Also, spatial econometric method is an appropriate method to discuss the research question of this study. I have a few comments which may help the authors to improve their study.

1. In fact, high-quality economic development is a relatively new concept, and there are few studies to discuss its determinants, such as green finance, industrial co-agglomeration, and environmental regulation and so on. Thus, I suggest the authors to add some discussion in the literature review section. I would suggest following additions:

a) Yang, Y., Su, X., & Yao, S. (2021). Nexus between green finance, fintech, and high-quality economic development: Empirical evidence from China. Resources Policy, 74, 102445.

b) Zheng, H., & He, Y. (2022). How does industrial co-agglomeration affect high-quality economic development? Evidence from Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle in China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 371, 133485.

c) Wang, L., Wang, Z., & Ma, Y. (2022). Does environmental regulation promote the high-quality development of manufacturing? A quasi-natural experiment based on China's carbon emission trading pilot scheme. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 81, 101216.

2. Please add the theory or literature which can support for the selection of these control variables in Section 3.1.3. Furthermore, please further modify the grammar and expression of the MS.

3. It is necessary to add the robustness test of this MS. Meanwhile, please explain the possible reasons behind the empirical findings that the indirect effect of government investment in the primary industry on high-quality economic development is negative, but not significant, and the indirect effect of government investment in the secondary industry on high-quality economic development is significantly negative, and the indirect effect of government investment in the tertiary industry on high-quality economic development is also significantly negative.

4. Please state the limitations and directions for further research.

Reviewer #3: As the authors mentioned, since the reform and opening up, China's economic development has made great achievements, but the overall development quality is not high. Therefore, China's economy has gradually shifted to high quality in recent years. With selecting indicators from the five dimensions of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing, the authors construct an economic high-quality development index system by using the principal component analysis, and empirically studies the impact of the government’s investment in the three industries on the high-quality development of regional economy by using the spatial Dubin model from 2006-2016.

I think that this manuscript has an interesting topic to investigate the impact of government investment on high-quality economic development. However, there are lots of room to improve this MS.

1. I suggest the authors to add the robustness test of this MS. Furthermore, I suggest the authors to add more discussion on the mechanism of how government investment affects high-quality economic development.

2. My major concern is that this MS lacks theory or literature support for control variables selection in more detail, not in general citation.

3. Using the SDM to investigate the impact of Chinese government investment on high-quality economic development is one of the major contribution of this study. In Section 3.2, the authors state the reason why they use the SDM to discuss this research question, however, I think this is not good enough. I suggest the author to further introduce other recent studies which adopt the SDM, so as to prove the advantages of this model. I suggest the followings on green finance (Wang et al., 2021), green technology innovation (Wang et al., 2021), and environmental regulation (Zheng et al., 2023).

(1) Wang, F., Wang, R., & He, Z. (2021). The impact of environmental pollution and green finance on the high-quality development of energy based on spatial Dubin model. Resources Policy, 74, 102451.

(2) Wang, H., Cui, H., & Zhao, Q. (2021). Effect of green technology innovation on green total factor productivity in China: Evidence from spatial durbin model analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production, 288, 125624.

(3) Zheng, H., Wu, S., Zhang, Y., & He, Y. (2023). Environmental regulation effect on green total factor productivity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Journal of Environmental Management, 325, 116465.

4. This manuscript needs additional editing for grammar, succinct of literal expression so on thoroughly.

Reviewer #4: 1. the abstract lacks information on the data sample as well as the study period, etc.

2. the literature review is confusing and lacks logic, mainly the accumulation of some ideas, without the authors' comments.

3. the language is more problematic.

4. there is no introduction of the method itself and lack of description of the applicability of the method

5. Why use the spatial Durbin model? Need to be tested.

6. The structure of the paper is Chinese paper structure, which does not meet the English format requirements.

7. The conclusions and recommendations lack organization.

8. Insufficient literature combing. 9.

9. The proportion of Chinese literature is too high.

10. The thesis is not innovative enough to meet the publication requirements.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

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An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Chinese Government Investment on High-quality Economic Development——A Study Based on Spatial Dubin Model

PONE-D-22-25225R1

Dear Dr. Wang,

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.

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Kind regards,

Stefan Cristian Gherghina, PhD. Habil.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: Partly

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: Yes

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: No

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

Reviewer #4: The author's revisions are not satisfactory, many of them are discussing and not really revising, for example, the structure of the paper, the language and the reference requirements, so I think the current version is not suitable for publication.

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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.

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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: No

Reviewer #4: No

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