PONE-D-24-27750The Impact of the Digital Economy on Food System Resilience: Evidence from ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

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Eda Ustaoglu, PhD

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: Yes

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: No

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: 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: 1. discuss the novelty of the study so we understand why worthy readin the manuscript

2. Justify why you chose only one bank -- potential of introducing bias into the study

3. Discuss your choice of smaple ( why concentrate only on three areas)

4. Explain clearly the choice of instruments and how they realte to the differnt variables of interest

5. Its important to show the actual structural equation that was estimated rather than mentioning the variables

6. Kindly show the marginal effects and discuss their implications for the study

7. Is Table 2 logit regression model or what?

8. Explain clearly the method that was used to generate the IV system

Reviewer #2: The author did a good job of studying the empowerment of food system resilience using the digital economy to achieve food security. The authors used panel data from 2011 to 2021. The paper used appropriate models to achieve the study objective. Therefore, I recommend that the research be accepted for publication.

However, there may be additions that may give the research more scientific strength:

1- Line 31-33

It is preferable to write an actual number instead of an expected one because we are in 2024.

2-Add a simple definition for each of:

Line 87 "siphon effect"

line 168 "MAR externality"

Line 260 "entropy method"

Line 386 "CRITIC"

3- Line 93-101

The author mentioned that some studies had shortcomings in food system resilience.

It is preferable to refer to these studies in this paragraph.

4-Equations 2 and 3:

Use the idea of endogeneity…. What is the model’s name?

It is better to add it here, not in line 404-407.

4- Table 1

It would be nice to explain some signs that may be illogical, such as fertilizer use intensity.

5- The title was repeated in rows 395 and 434.

6- The recommendations were long, so it would be nice to shorten them.

7- Write the references in the research, as specified in the journal.

Reviewer #3: This manuscript is admirable for its subject matter, research methodology and data used. The impact of the digital economy on the important issue of the food system resilience, which is somehow related to food security, has been evaluated. The author (s) has (have) been able to use the requested statistical methods well and achieve the objectives of the study. At the same time, it seems that paying attention to the following will help to improve the study:

1- Line 31: At the end of this line, the result of a prediction in 2023 is mentioned. Now the year 2023 is over. Has it reached this number?!

2- Lines 114 and 115: A sentence has been repeated.

3- Line 167: What word does MAR stand for? Introduce it for the first time!

4-Line 195: The word Impact should be deleted.

5-Line 224: these are not correlation coefficients but they are regression coefficients that are completely different from correlation coefficients.

6-Line 231: In equation 2, Controlit cannot be the same variables of equation 1!!!

7-Line 232: In equation 3, variable Digit replaced by the equation 2? Why is it included in the equation 3 again?

8- Line 234: Correlation coefficient should be regression coefficient.

9- Line 255: Is the variable food system resilience (FSR) an explanatory variable? Usually, in statistics or econometrics, the variable on the left side of the equation is called the dependent variable, and the variables on the right side of the equation are called explanatory variables.

10- Line 257: the word of system after index should be deleted.

11- Line 263, Table 1: How is the variable value added converted into percentage?!

12- Line 277: Correct the equation number, (4) should be (6).

13-Line 278: Equation (8) should be Equation (6).

14-Line 283: Control variable should be control variables!!

15-Line 364: The tittle of table 4 should be regression results not Descriptive statistics of variables.

16- Considering that the data used are panel, why haven't you used the Limer test?

17- Why is the unit root test not done on the variables?

18- Line 456: is this last column confidence interval? where is interval?!! they are points!!

19- Line 466: Table 9, Why are the fluctuations of Moran's index so high in some cases? For example, in the years 2017, 2018 and 2019, this index for the FSR variable first decreased sharply and then increased? Has something special happened in the studied areas in these years?! If nothing special happened, isn't the validity of the data questioned?

20-Line 476: Why are not the values of LM, LR and Hausman tests ​​reported in the table?

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Sanderson Abel

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-27750.pdf

The impact of the digital economy on food system resilience: Evidence from China

PONE-D-24-27750R1

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,

Eda Ustaoglu, PhD

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

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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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

**********

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)

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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: Yes: Sanderson Abel

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