PONE-D-22-23121Effect of Market Integration on Economic Growth: Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration of ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. yang,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Atif Jahanger, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS 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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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

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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: 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: Dear Editor,

This is an interesting topic of relevance and would potentially make a contribution to the related literature. In addition, it has significant research findings and important policy implications. In my opinion, it also represents an unexplored, interesting topic to be investigated. However, the manuscript is well-articulated and presented but it has also some minor concerns to be incorporated before considering it for publication.

1- The introduction section is a little unfocused and too many references and old. It is proposed to revise the paragraphs according to the main ideas and be rewritten to highlight the contribution it is making to the extant literature. In its present form it is little bland and does not engage the reader. I think the introduction needs to focus on the topic and set up a story that highlights the purpose of the research, and there should be cohesion between the paragraphs.

2- The authors are required to rewrite the literature review section. The novelty of this paper should be further justified by highlighting main contributions to the existing literature. I can give the author some references as sample, the author can see and feel them:

Energy-related CO2 emissions and structural emission reduction in China’s agriculture: An input-output perspective

Energy carbon emission reduction of China’s transportation sector: An input–output approach

Structural emissions reduction of China's power and heating industry under the goal of "Double Carbon"：A Perspective of Input-Output Analysis

Energy-related carbon emissions and structural emissions reduction of China's construction industry: the perspective of input-output analysis

3- The empirical results look weak. The author(s) need to deep and systematic analysis about the results should highlight the novelty of this manuscript.

4- The authors should increase policy recommendations aimed to articulate policy decisions.

5- Include limitations and further research.

6- Please unify font and format. It looks terrible.

7- The typesetting of formulas and equations is very poor. For example, p12...

8- Kindly follow the right style of citation (references) throughout the manuscript by checking the guidelines of (Plos one) journal or any previously published paper in the journal.

9- Overall, the quality of English used in this study requires significant improvement.

Reviewer #2: This manuscript reports on "Effect of Market Integration on Economic Growth: Evidence from the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration of China" My comments are listed as follows:

1. The English language needs more work. There are many grammatical and typo mistakes in this manuscript. The paper needs to be edited by a native English speaker.

2. The abstract should state in concise form, the purpose of the research, the principal results, and major conclusions.

3. Authors should motivate more their study and present the practical implications. Contribution to the existing literature should be improved.

4. Theoretical framework section is missing.

5. The authors should increase the Pixel size of Figure 1.

6. All equations should be referenced in the main text.

7. The empirical findings are not discussed well. If these findings advocate the existing literature's outcome, then what is new?

8. It would be more constructive if the authors discuss their empirical findings in graphical form.

9. R-square value is very low in Tables 8 and 11.

10. The author(s) need to compare their results (Each Finding) with past studies (what was provided in the article is not compares of result but an explanation of views from past authors) and in comparing the result from the empirical investigations the author(s) should as much as possible provide a recast of the comparison made and the supposed implications or advantages of the new finding made with those discovered by past authors. This will ensure justice to the extant literature and also evincing the superiority of the current findings over the past findings.

11. The conclusion and policy recommendations are not well written. Authors should add more to this section, especially in the aspect of policy framing and implementation.

Reviewer #3: The authors have attempted to test the effect of regional market integration on the economic development in a panel setting in China within a fixed effect model framework. The overall work is good. However, I feel that there is still some room to improve the paper before it can be published. My suggestions are attached in a separate file.

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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: Yes: Yang Yu

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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[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: review_plos one.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review Report Plos One.pdf

PONE-D-22-23121R1A study of the economic growth effects of market integration: an examination of 27 cities from the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in

ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

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 Jan 20 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,

Atif Jahanger, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: (No Response)

**********

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: After the detailed the modification, the comments of the reviewers have been considered and executed carefully by the authors, and the manuscript now shows good topic expression, academic writing, logical essay structure, and adequate quantitative methods with meticulous results discussions, most of the deficiencies have been solved and the depth is deepened.

However, there are still a few minor problems.

1. Please proofread for small grammatical errors and misspelled words.

2. Try to cite some of latest articles instead of the older ones. For example,

The effect of regional integration on urban sprawl in urban agglomeration areas: A case study of the Yangtze River Delta, China

The explanation of "U" curve can refer to the following literature

Achieving Carbon Neutrality Pledge through Clean Energy Transition: Linking the Role of Green Innovation and Environmental Policy in E7 Countries

Going away or going green in NAFTA nations? Linking natural resources, energy utilization, and environmental sustainability through the lens of the EKC hypothesis

3. Please note the coordination of the tables, some of which look too large.

4. kindly follow the right style of citation (references) throughout the manuscript by checking the guidelines of (PLOS ONE) journal or any previously published paper in the journal.

5. Overall, the quality of English used in this study requires significant improvement.

Reviewer #2: My comments have been addressed accordingly. Therefore, this paper is suitable for publication in this journal.

Reviewer #3: I thank the authors for submitting a revised version of their work. However, it is a complete disappointment that the authors have submitted the work naively and it is difficult to follow. The author is supposed to incorporate all the highlighted changes in the main submission. Instead of doing that the authors have submitted the changes in a different file, NOT in the main submission. This is not the appropriate manner of submitting the revised version of a paper.

I did not find any notable modifications in the abstract section. The authors have only written two sentences. This is not acceptable. Please address why the work is important, what is the implication of the findings and why do they matter. Write a sentence or two detailing the main message to the wider audience of Plos One.

There are still so many typos. I have also seen that the authors are mixing capital and small alphabets. I can also see that the authors have not followed the citation style recommend for the main body. The first and last names coming together with the etc.

I ask for another major revision by detailing all the comments made in the previous round. Submit a revised paper including all the changes in it (NOT Separately). Mark them in red.

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: review r1.pdf

PONE-D-22-23121R2A study of the economic growth effects of market integration: an examination of 27 cities from the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in

ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

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 May 18 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,

Atif Jahanger, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

[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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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: After the detailed two rounds of & modification, the comments of the reviewers have been considered and executed carefully by the authors, and the manuscript R2 now shows good topic expression, academic writing, logical essay structure, and adequate quantitative methods with meticulous results discussions, most of the deficiencies have been solved and the depth is deepened. Thereafter, I do not have any more comments for manuscript R2, but I suggest the Tables should be properly displayed according to the requirement of Plos one. Please refer to the already published articles from plos one journal to perfect the format of every element in this manuscript.

Summing up the above, my recommendation is ACCEPT.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed by the authors. The current manuscript reads well and worth considering for publication.

Reviewer #3: Review Report

Paper Title: A study of the economic growth effects of market integration: an examination of 27 cities from the

Yangtze River Delta city cluster in China

This is the second revision that the author has submitted and I expected a substantial improvement in the quality of the writing. However, the improvements made are trivial and does not satisfy the rigor of the journal to be published. I will ask for a major revision again; however, if the author fails to adhere to my comments, this article should be rejected from publication. I strongly recommend the author to present a similarity check report using a plagiarism detector software such as Turnitin. My suggestions are as follows:

NOTE: The English language in this paper needs rigorous improvement. I strongly advice to use Grammarly or AJE digital editing service to improve the English. Please consult with a native speaker or someone with professional editing experience to fix the pitfalls. Another thing is that, professionalism is expected from authors submitting papers in frontier journals. The authors have not followed the manner of writing at all including the referencing style. Please improve these issues.

Abstract:

1. The abstract is very general and it does not represent the big picture of all the findings. I recommend that the authors incorporate the importance of this work (why the author feels that this work is important) in a sentence in the beginning of the abstract.

2. Please include the major findings in detail. At this moment, these are missing, and it will not attract any audience to read it.

Introduction

1.The introduction section fails to convey adequate background information. It is too concise to address the key points of why this research has been undertaken. Please enrich the background info. In the intro, please try to establish a robust link between the core of the problem and how you can address the issues empirically.

5. The novelty statement is missing. Please highlight how the paper is about to enrich the current literature. The marginal contributions are not sufficient to get published. Currently, the novelty section is missing.

Literature review

1.This section is written very monotonously without any break or sub-sections/headings, which is completely unprofessional. Please include sub-headings and try to write in moderately sized paragraphs.

2. Also, remove the marginal contribution section from literature review and add it using a point-by-point framework in the introduction.

3. Please include line number or page number. Change “Theory” as “Theoretical Framework”.

4. The author has overused “firstly”, “secondly” and so on…Please find alternatives of these overused words to simplify your writing.

Methods

1. Under Fig 1, “As can be seen from Fig 1, The relevant data are mainly from the statistical”…..You are mixing capital and small letters again. Fix this error.

2. Please include source of the variables in Table 1. There are several grammatical errors and typos. Please fix all. You have been warned about these mistakes in the first round of revision.

3. Please number the sections and sub-sections consecutively for a better reading experience.

5. Add a section for the unit root tests.

Empirical Analysis and Conclusion

1. Discuss the results posted in table 2. For the Unit Root test results, indicate the significance level by ‘***’

2. Please elaborate all abbreviations at their first mention (what are IPS and LLC unit root tests)

2. The author should show that his findings are replicable and comparable with others. When discussing the outcomes, the author should cite from the recent literature to show that his findings are comparable. Please try to incorporate the recent progress in the literature in your discussion section.

Conclusion

1. Conclusion needs to be more structured with the gist of what has been done and what has been achieved in this article. At this stage the major conclusions and the major findings are missing.

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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.

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: No

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PONE-D-22-23121R3A study of the economic growth effects of market integration: an examination of 27 cities from the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in

ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Yang,

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 Jun 16 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,

Atif Jahanger, 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.

[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: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: (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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: Last time I suggested the authors to arrange the tables appropriately as required by Plos one journal, I found that this version was still a little messy. Please take note of this point.

For English standard, it is suggested to use professional language editing services.

At the same time, the last chapter is about the key findings and policy recommendations. It is suggested to revise the content, that is, 6.1 is the conclusion and 6.2 is the policy recommendations. Or, instead of using subheadings, a paragraph is the conclusion of the study, and two or three paragraphs are the policy recommendations. It is suggested to look at how papers in similar fields have been published in Plos one for final chapters.

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed my comments well. Therefore, this study can be accepted in this journal.

Good Luck

Reviewer #3: The authors have addressed the issues raised during the earlier stages of revision. However, there are still some loopholes that need to be addressed to be accepted for publication. As such, I recommend a major revision again. My points are as follows:

1. The abstract is too long now. Please make it concise. "The Yangtze Delta region, known for its economic dynamism and openness, is not immune to constraints. Administrative and trade barriers, as well as market segmentation caused

by local protection, all hinder development in this area. The June 2021 release of the 14th Five-Year

Plan for the Yangtze Delta Region identifies existing challenges and emphasizes the urgency of removing

institutional barriers that hinder the free movement of factors within the region. The plan

also calls for improving the current logistics system and eliminating obstacles and disruptions in

transporting goods and services between provinces". These lines are redundant, get rid of them. Keep the word limit below 300 words.

2. The main issue still remains with the introduction section. It does not make any sense why the author is having difficulty in understanding the way of writing introduction. Now this section is written monotonously, without any breaks and paragraphs. There is no background information and nothing has been mentioned as per the empirical findings. There is no novelty section as well.

3. Please write the intro section by introducing the problem. Discuss in paragraphs how market integration affect the regional economic growth. Discuss in a separate paragraph why this study is important. Discuss in paragraphs why did you select China and the regions. Discuss in separate paragraphs which work has been done in the respective domain of research. Discuss in separate paragraphs how you want to address the issue based on the theoretical framework. Also include a few lines about the econometric approaches used in this article.

4. After writing above points, write a novelty section in a point-by-point framework.

5. Add sub-headings for each of the paragraphs under the Literature review section.

6. Please proofread the paper again. Under section 2.2, you have written sections 2.1.1, 2.12..... "The impact of commodity market integration economic growth"

7. Please incorporate a map of the selected cities for easy reference.

8. What is "Aut" above section 3.2??

9. Line number 419 and 420 show that there are grammatical errors and typos. Please fix the issues.

10. For the Unit Root test results, indicate the significance level by ‘***’. Do it for ALL tables. Table name should be above the table.

11. Why there is a sub-section 3.1.1 under section 4????

12. Incorporate citations for the discussion under section 5. There is no citation at this moment.

13. Name section 6 as Conclusions and policy recommendations. Delete the subheadings in this section. Apart from discussion the main conclusions, incorporate the policies in a separate section. Also discuss the limitations of this paper.

14. Please include a similarity check report. I did not find any such report.

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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.

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: No

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[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.

A study of the economic growth effects of market integration: an examination of 27 cities from the Yangtze River Delta city cluster in

China

PONE-D-22-23121R4

Dear Dr. Yang,

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,

Atif Jahanger, Ph.D

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 #3: (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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

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 #3: 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 #3: 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 #3: The work as it stands now looks well. The authors have done a great job. However, please address the following comments to polish the quality of your work.

1. Make sure that the keywords are written following the journal referred style. Do not mix capital and small letters.

2. This is very crucial, please make sure that ALL headings and sub-headings are written Either in Sentence Case OR Each word Capital Case. Right now, you have mixed it all throughout your manuscript.

3. Another critical issue is the paragraphing. The authors need to show minimum sense of paragraphing while writing a paper. In the introduction, there are too many small paragraphs, which can be merged to make reasonably sized paragraphs. Please make sure that you have at least 200 words in each of the paragraphs.

4. Please mention the statistical significance levels under EACH of the tables that has ***.

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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.

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 #3: Yes: Mohammad Razib Hossain

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