Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariant

Thitithep Sitthiyot

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0288265

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 23, 2023
7 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Ricky Chee Jiun Chia, Editor PONE-D-23-12286Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariantPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Sitthiyot, 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 8th July 2023. 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, Ricky Chee Jiun Chia 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. 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. 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 ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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: 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 ****** 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: Using the actual data on income shares by quintile and by decile of Thailand from 1988 to 2021, this study examines whether or not the income distribution has a property of scale invariance across years. Comments Overall, I find the study interesting and worthy of investigation. However, I have several comments if addressed will improve the paper further and I outline them below. 0) Abstract. The abstract should be shortened. For publishing the paper, I suggest that author(s) deliver a concise and factual abstract. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. Readers are usually interested in highlighting ideas or arguments that are attractively presented in the abstract. For example, delete “…The concept of scale invariance or self-similarity is not well recognized by policymakers but may help explain the pattern of income distribution in Thailand that had not markedly changed over the past three decades...This requires creativity, openness to new ways of thinking, and disciplined analyses when it comes to policy design and implementation…”. 1) Although the authors make good attempt in providing a compelling case for the need of this study, but it can be strengthened further by spelling out more succinctly why the need to explore the nexus between the property of scale invariance and income distribution. This must come out clearly, as its present form, it has not been clearly articulated on. 2) The contribution section appears sketchy and general. I would like to see the contribution section strengthened drawing from the findings of the study. 3) Related literature review with Thailand data is not clear. The author(s) should cite relevant related papers. For example, the study https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qref.2004.02.003 employ Thailand (and Asian) economic data. 4) It is not properly motivated the use of the pairwise K-S test. ****** 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 ******** [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.0288265.r001
Revision 1
21 Jun 2023 Author Response Manuscript Number: PONE-D-23-12286R1 Title: Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariant I sincerely thank Reviewer #1 for providing several important comments and useful suggestions. I would like to inform Reviewer #1 that I have made a revision according to comments and suggestions made by Reviewer #1. I hope that my revised manuscript is clearer in all aspects that Reviewer #1 has commented and/or suggested. Let me respond to Reviewer #1’s comments and suggestions as follows. - Overall, I find the study interesting and worthy of investigation. However, I have several comments if addressed will improve the paper further and I outline them below. I would like to thank Reviewer #1 for finding my paper interesting and worthy of investigation. I really appreciate it. - Abstract. The abstract should be shortened. For publishing the paper, I suggest that author(s) deliver a concise and factual abstract. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. Readers are usually interested in highlighting ideas or arguments that are attractively presented in the abstract. For example, delete “…The concept of scale invariance or self-similarity is not well recognized by policymakers but may help explain the pattern of income distribution in Thailand that had not markedly changed over the past three decades...This requires creativity, openness to new ways of thinking, and disciplined analyses when it comes to policy design and implementation…”. I follow Reviewer #1’s advice by deleting unnecessary sentences as suggested by Reviewer #1 above and only stating the purpose of the study, the principal results, major conclusions, and policy implications in Abstract in my revised manuscript. - Although the authors make good attempt in providing a compelling case for the need of this study, but it can be strengthened further by spelling out more succinctly why the need to explore the nexus between the property of scale invariance and income distribution. This must come out clearly, as its present form, it has not been clearly articulated on. In response to Reviewer #1’s useful comment on this point, I explain the need to explore the link between scale invariance and income distribution in Introduction, paragraph 5 in my revised manuscript. - The contribution section appears sketchy and general. I would like to see the contribution section strengthened drawing from the findings of the study. I would like to thank Reviewer #1 for this very useful comment. I rewrote Discussion by first summarizing the findings and then trying to draw policy implications from the findings as stated in Discussion, paragraphs 1 and 2 in my revised manuscript. I also add suggestion for future research in Discussion, paragraph 4 in my revised manuscript. - Related literature review with Thailand data is not clear. The author(s) should cite relevant related papers. For example, the study https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qref.2004.02.003 employ Thailand (and Asian) economic data. In response to Reviewer #1 on this issue, I would like to clarify with Reviewer #1 that I obtained the data on income shares from the Office of National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) website which is cited in References in my revised manuscript. To make the data used in this study accessible and transparent, I also provide all data on income shares by quintile and by decile of Thailand from 1988 to 2021 in Supporting Information, S1 Table. I would like to note that, although the NESDC website has an English language version, the income data can be accessed from its website in Thai language version only. The link to the NESDC website, which is https://www.nesdc.go.th/main.php?filename=PageSocial, is included in References in my revised manuscript. If readers go to this link and click “สถิติด้านความยากจนและการกระจายรายได้” which can be translated as “Poverty and income distribution statistics”, readers can download the data on income shares by quintile and by decile of Thailand from 1988 to 2021 which are in Tables 8.2 and 8.5. Please see the attached file (Response to Reviewers_R1) for the step-by-step of how to access the data. - It is not properly motivated the use of the pairwise K-S test. In response to Reviewer #1’s comment on the use of pairwise K-S test, in Introduction, paragraph 4 in my revised manuscript, besides the study by Chakrabarti et al. (2013) who note that there tends to be an agreement among academic scholars in economics, statistics, and physics that the upper tail of income distribution could be well described by power law but the lower part of income distribution could be fitted by power law, gamma, or log-normal distribution, I include additional studies, namely, Montroll and Shlesinger (1982), Champernowne and Cowell (1998), Drăgulescu and Yakovenko (2001), Chatterjee and Chakrabarti (2007), and Yakovenko and Barkley Rosser (2009), all of which use complicated statistical distributions in order to fit the income data and test the property of scale invariance as a ground for using the pairwise K-S test which is relatively simpler and does not require a priori assumption with regard to the distribution of data but could achieve the same task. In addition, in Materials and Methods, paragraph 2, I explain the reason for using the K-S test by referring to the study by Sitthiyot et al. (2020) who note that the K-S test is non-parametric and commonly used to determine if two datasets differ statistically. Its main advantages are that it makes no assumption about the distribution of data and works for small sample size. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers_R1.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288265.r002
22 Jun 2023 Decision Letter - Ricky Chee Jiun Chia, Editor Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariant PONE-D-23-12286R1 Dear Dr. Thitithrp Sitthiyot, 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, Ricky Chee Jiun Chia Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288265.r003
Formally Accepted
3 Jul 2023 Acceptance Letter - Ricky Chee Jiun Chia, Editor PONE-D-23-12286R1 Income distribution in Thailand is scale-invariant Dear Dr. Sitthiyot: 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. Ricky Chee Jiun Chia Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288265.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .