PONE-D-23-30222Game analysis on PPP model operation of abandoned mines ecological restoration under the innovation of central government's reward and punishment system in ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

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Xingwei Li, 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: No

Reviewer #3: N/A

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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: No

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: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: The author did a very good job.

1.The theme of the article is innovative.

2.The manuscript technically sound, and the data support the conclusions.

3.Statistical analysis appropriately and rigorously.

4.The article is easy to understand and has no grammar errors.

Reviewer #2: In this paper, an evolutionary game model of "local government-social capital" was developed to analyze the interaction and behavior mechanism of core stakeholders in the operation process of abandoned mines ecological restoration PPP mode. It has some significance. However, J have the following concerns

1) --Literature Review should be presented as a separated section. Essentially, many papers have examined the evolutionary game .

For example：

--Zhang S., Wang, C.X., Yu C., The evolutionary game analysis and simulation with system dynamics of manufacturer's emissions abatement behavior under cap-and-trade regulation, Applied Mathematics and Computation, 2019, 355, 343-355.

--Shi Y., Wei Z., Shahbaz M., Zeng Y., Exploring the dynamics of low-carbon technology diffusion among enterprises: An evolutionary game model on a two-level heterogeneous social network, 2021,101: 105399.

--Jiang N., Feng Y., Wang X., Fractional-order evolutionary game of green and low-carbon innovation in manufacturing enterprises, Alexandria Engineering Journal, 2022,61(2), 12673-12687.

It is suggested that author(s) introduce the papers related to the above evolutionary game analysis into the literature review, and identify the differences between the previous papers and current paper. Thus, the authors have to differentiate further and rethink about their work's innovations.

2) The innovation points for this paper should be clearly given in Introduction.

3) In Section 4 Numerical simulation analysis , where the initial values of the parameter comes? Explanations of the basis for setting the values of these parameters should be presented.

4) In Section 5. Conclusions and suggestions， the future research directions should be presented.

Reviewer #3: The authors research the interaction and behavior mechanism of core stakeholders (social capital, local government and central government) in the ecological restoration of abandoned mine from the perspective of the PPP model. The hypotheses are reasonable, the proofs are relatively complete and the results are clear.

This article is mainly a simulation analysis and has little to do with the statistical analysis, so I choose “N/A” in Review Question 2.

But there are six issues that the authors need to revise.

1. The narrative order about the literature review needs to be adjusted.

The authors focus on the ecological restoration of abandoned mine from the perspective of an economic approach, so after providing the background information, the authors should review the traditional perspectives and approaches in the previous researches on the ecological restoration of abandoned mine and then put forward the PPP model given that this topic lacks an economic perspective.

The brief review of the PPP model and the researches with it should be presented after putting forward the PPP model.

When finishing the above work, the authors need to elaborate “However, the ecological environment restoration of mines generally lacks a good income mechanism, and social capital is still in the wait-and-see and exploration stage at present”. Based on this work, “it is of great research value to explore the application of PPP model innovation in low-profit mine ecological restoration projects” can be better understood.

So how to adjust the Introduction is clear. The first and last paragraph need not to be adjusted. The middle content can be conducted as follows: (1) Review the traditional approaches and put forward the PPP model; (2) Brief review the PPP model and the researches with it; (3) Elaborate the research gap.

2. The shortcomings (and contributions if they are important) in the relevant literature should be clear instead of “someone did something, some did something…”.

The authors can criticize the previous researches from method or evidence to highlight the research value.

3. The hypotheses should be concise. The authors can explain the logic of a hypothesis before presenting the hypothesis. Do not put the hypothesis and its explanation together.

4. Why choose the evolutionary game model to explain the operation of PPP projects? or how the operation of PPP projects manifests the characteristics of evolutionary games? The authors need to expound the connection between the evolutionary game model and the operation of PPP projects, or summarize several stylized facts of PPP projects, which are in accord with the characteristics of evolutionary games. This work can be put in the Introduction or Model hypothesis and construction.

5. Given that the PPP model has been conducted in reality, how do the authors interpret if the actual operation does not reach to “equilibrium”? Consider giving some possible reasons.

6. The proofs need to be presented in details. The authors can put the detailed process in the appendix. Otherwise, we can hardly understand the game result without patience and enthusiasm.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-23-30222R1Game analysis on PPP model operation of abandoned mines ecological restoration under the innovation of central government's reward and punishment system in ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

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 14 2024 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,

Xingwei Li, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Reconsider the "Option 4" and "Argue and Revise". What are the possible reasons if the actual operation does not reach to “equilibrium”? Given that China has a large number of administrative units, you can analyze why some administrative units adopt a kind of regulation and why the others administrative units do not adopt this kind of regulation during the different incidence period. The authors' response, "during the high incidence period of ecological restoration service quality issues in mines in China, most government regulatory departments adopt an active and active regulatory model in pursuit of maximizing social benefits. However, during the low incidence period of accidents, in order to ensure the interests of their own departments, the extremely intermittent regulatory model is abolished", just gives the theoretical reasons or the theoretical assumptions, ignores the reality explanations. To make the model in this paper more applied, the authors can give some stylized facts or cases that clearly manifest the actions of the governments.

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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

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

Reviewer #3: N/A

**********

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

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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 #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: Reconsider the "Option 4" and "Argue and Revise". What are the possible reasons if the actual operation does not reach to “equilibrium”? Given that China has a large number of administrative units, you can analyze why some administrative units adopt a kind of regulation and why the others administrative units do not adopt this kind of regulation during the different incidence period. The authors' response, "during the high incidence period of ecological restoration service quality issues in mines in China, most government regulatory departments adopt an active and active regulatory model in pursuit of maximizing social benefits. However, during the low incidence period of accidents, in order to ensure the interests of their own departments, the extremely intermittent regulatory model is abolished", just gives the theoretical reasons or the theoretical assumptions, ignores the reality explanations. To make the model in this paper more applied, the authors can give some stylized facts or cases that clearly manifest the actions of the governments.

Whether to modify this issue depends on the author's wishes.

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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: 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.

Game analysis on PPP model operation of abandoned mines ecological restoration under the innovation of central government's reward and punishment system in China

PONE-D-23-30222R2

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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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,

Xingwei Li, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: