Large private shareholders, industrial policies and industrial loans of city commercial banks: Evidence from China

Jie Liu; Qiaoyun Zhang; Chao Xiao

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0278654

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 23, 2022
12 Aug 2022 Decision Letter - LeThanh Ha, Editor PONE-D-22-17876Private Large Shareholders, Industrial Policy and Industrial Loans of City Commercial BanksPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, 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 Sep 26 2022 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, LeThanh Ha 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 include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [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: No ****** 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: This paper perhaps a good paper and has contribution for body of knowledge. However, it is too lengthy. At first, I thought perhaps there is a series of robustness check to ensure the results are reliable and vigor. However, it seems not ready for publication and it has no focus. It is confusing and the write-up is too mechanical. But the topic is interesting. So, I gave a major revision as the verdict. First of all, kindly note that introduction section plays important role to attract the attention. When the introduction is bad, most likely the reviewers will reject the paper. Unfortunately, the introduction is the weakest part of this paper. As earlier mentioned, it is confusing. These are my suggestions: Rather than starting with discussion about china, focus first on what kind of contribution this paper offers to the body of knowledge. Move the first paragraph of introduction to section 2 (literature review) as a new sub-section. Name it as 2.1 Ownership Expropriation and Industrial Loan in Chinese City Commercial Banks. As I believe the selling point of the paper is the moderating variable, it is important to show the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. Therefore, paragraph 2 of Introduction can be the first paragraph. However, discuss first the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. The author can break it into two paragraphs, where first paragraph discusses the positive relationship, and second paragraph discusses about negative relationship. Following that paragraph, the author can offer industry policy as the moderating variable. Elaborate also which theory supports the argument that industry policy can strengthen the relationship. It is your second or third paragraph. Then, show why Chinese city commercial banks are interesting research setting. Why the case of Chinese city commercial banks is important for body of knowledge? How it suits the research context? How researchers from other countries can learn from the case of Chinese city commercial banks? Yes, the author can elaborate it with the existing paragraph 3. Then follow with the contributions, which is already in the paper (paragraph 4 to 7). Meanwhile, section 2 (the literature review) can be divided into three section. Section 2.1 is Ownership Expropriation and Industrial Loan in Chinese City Commercial Banks. Section 2.2 is Theoretical analysis (only discuss the theoretical framework that support the research framework). Section 2.3 is for Hypothesis development. Don’t mix theoretical analysis and hypothesis development. I still don’t get which theory that used and tested. It is unclear. This is why it is important to have Section 2.2 The Data and Methodology section is also unclear. Keep it simple and straightforward. 3.1 is for Data, 3.2 Model Specification, and 3.3 is Measures. The 3.2 can provide only the final model for brevity reason. Add 1 table for variable definition. You can add it in 3.3 or in Appendix. Then, summarize the variable definition in Page 6 t0 7. Keep it simple. The results are exhausting and confusing. It obfuscates the main idea of the research. The authors mix and scramble all the tables. My suggestions: Provide only the main results for hypothesis testing, which are: Table 2 Column 3 and Table 13. Just combine the Table 2 Column 3 and Table 13 as one table. Called it as 4.2 Results Start with 4.1 descriptive statistics (Table 1) and add correlation matrix. Add one section and called it 4.3 Robustness check. Then provide Table 4, 16, 17, 18, and 19. Move Table 3 to section 2.1 Move Table 6 to Section 3.1 or Appendix Delete the rest of tables. Add one analysis for robustness check, which is Difference-in-Difference (but this is optional as your results already massive). Add the moderation plot based on Table 13. Check Dawson (2014). Add contribution for body of knowledge in Conclusion section. Add limitation and suggestion for future research in conclusion section For sure, the manuscript is too confusing. Reference Dawson, J. F. (2014). Moderation in management research: What, why, when, and how. Journal of business and psychology, 29(1), 1-19. ****** 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: Rayenda Khresna Brahmana ******** [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.0278654.r001
Revision 1
7 Sep 2022 Author Response PONE-D-22-17876 Dear Editor LeThanh Ha, Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to revise the manuscript we submitted to PLOS ONE. We have revised the initial version of the paper in accordance with the requirements of the journal and reviewer's comments carefully. Your active help and the reviewer's comments are very insightful, so that the quality of our manuscript has been significantly improved. As requested, we have submitted the Rebuttal letter (The filename is Response to Reviewers), Marked up copy of our manuscript (The filename is Revised Manuscript with Track Changes) and Unmarked version of our manuscript (Filename is Manuscript). Thank you so much for your help and that of reviewers. We look forward to receiving your positive feedback. Kind regards, Jie Liu [Corresponding author] School of Finance, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics liuj@smail.swufe.edu.cn Response to reviewer #1 comments Dear Reviewer Rayenda Khresna Brahmana, We really appreciate you for your carefulness and conscientiousness. Your suggestions are really valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. According to your suggestions, we have made the following revisions on this manuscript: 1. First of all, kindly note that introduction section plays important role to attract the attention. When the introduction is bad, most likely the reviewers will reject the paper. Unfortunately, the introduction is the weakest part of this paper. As earlier mentioned, it is confusing. These are my suggestions: Rather than starting with discussion about china, focus first on what kind of contribution this paper offers to the body of knowledge. Move the first paragraph of introduction to section 2 (literature review) as a new sub-section. Name it as 2.1 Ownership Expropriation and Industrial Loan in Chinese City Commercial Banks. As I believe the selling point of the paper is the moderating variable, it is important to show the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. Therefore, paragraph 2 of Introduction can be the first paragraph. However, discuss first the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. The author can break it into two paragraphs, where first paragraph discusses the positive relationship, and second paragraph discusses about negative relationship. Following that paragraph, the author can offer industry policy as the moderating variable. Elaborate also which theory supports the argument that industry policy can strengthen the relationship. It is your second or third paragraph. Then, show why Chinese city commercial banks are interesting research setting. Why the case of Chinese city commercial banks is important for body of knowledge? How it suits the research context? How researchers from other countries can learn from the case of Chinese city commercial banks? Yes, the author can elaborate it with the existing paragraph 3. Then follow with the contributions, which is already in the paper (paragraph 4 to 7). Response 1：Thank you very much for your advice. I have rewritten the Introduction based on your suggestions. We focus first on what kind of contribution this paper offers to the body of knowledge (paragraph 1). Indeed, the selling point of the paper is the moderating variable.Therefore, we focus on the moderating effects of industrial policy (paragraph 2). We also elaborate which theory supports the argument that industry policy can strengthen the relationship. Then, we show why Chinese city commercial banks are interesting research setting (paragraph 3). 2. Meanwhile, section 2 (the literature review) can be divided into three section. Section 2.1 is Ownership Expropriation and Industrial Loan in Chinese City Commercial Banks. Section 2.2 is Theoretical analysis (only discuss the theoretical framework that support the research framework). Section 2.3 is for Hypothesis development. Don’t mix theoretical analysis and hypothesis development. I still don’t get which theory that used and tested. It is unclear. This is why it is important to have Section 2.2 Response 2：Thank you for your constructive comments. We have revised the section 2 according to your comments. Section 2.1 is Ownership Expropriation and Industrial Loan in Chinese City Commercial Banks. Section 2.2 is Theoretical analysis. We formulate the theory of information asymmetry. This specifically includes adverse selection and moral hazard. Section 2.3 is for Hypothesis development. 3. The Data and Methodology section is also unclear. Keep it simple and straightforward. 3.1 is for Data, 3.2 Model Specification, and 3.3 is Measures. The 3.2 can provide only the final model for brevity reason. Add 1 table for variable definition. You can add it in 3.3 or in Appendix. Then, summarize the variable definition in Page 6 t0 7. Keep it simple. Response 3：We have simplified the Data and Methodology section. And added Appendix TableA1 for variable definition. 4. The results are exhausting and confusing. It obfuscates the main idea of the research. The authors mix and scramble all the tables. My suggestions: Provide only the main results for hypothesis testing, which are: Table 2 Column 3 and Table 13. Just combine the Table 2 Column 3 and Table 13 as one table. Called it as 4.2 Results Start with 4.1 descriptive statistics (Table 1) and add correlation matrix. Add one section and called it 4.3 Robustness check. Then provide Table 4, 16, 17, 18, and 19. Move Table 3 to section 2.1 Move Table 6 to Section 3.1 or Appendix Delete the rest of tables. Add one analysis for robustness check, which is Difference-in-Difference (but this is optional as your results already massive). Add the moderation plot based on Table 13. Check Dawson (2014). Response 4：Thank you for your positive comments. We added the correlation matrix as shown in Table 3 (The Descriptive statistics section). We provide only the main results for hypothesis testing as shown in Table 4 in 4.2 Results. And add the moderation plot (Fig.3) based on Table 4. Check Dawson (2014). We moved Table 3 and Table 6 of the original manuscript to section 2.1 and Appendix TableA2, respectively. In 4.3 Robustness check, we have retained Tables 16, 17, 18, and 19 from the original manuscript, which are now Tables 5, 6, 7, and 8, respectively. We did not retain Table 4 in the original manuscript, which reports the effect of China's banking regulatory policy on the impact of private large shareholders, because it is not relevant to the moderating effect of industrial policy in the Robustness test. This makes the article clearer as you emphasized. We deleted the rest of tables of the original manuscript. For DID, this method is often used for policy evaluation. It requires uninterrupted implementation of the policy. But the industrial policies of Chinese local governments do not meet the conditions of DID. Industrial policy is not continuous. For example, an industry that is supported in the current “Five-Year Plan” may not be supported in the next “Five-Year Plan”. However, we group the sample according to the criteria of whether the private large shareholders are supported by industrial policies. And test the impact of private large shareholders on banks' industrial loans in two groups. These results as shown in Table 9. This makes our robustness tests more richer and reliable. 5. Add contribution for body of knowledge in Conclusion section. Add limitation and suggestion for future research in conclusion section. Response 5：Thank you very much for your valuable comments. We have added contribution for body of knowledge and suggestions for future research in conclusion section. In addition, we have removed the inspirations in Conclusion section (the last two paragraphs of Conclusion section in the original manuscript). 6. For sure, the manuscript is too confusing. Response 6：We removed irrelevant content and tables and rewrote the main content based on your suggestion. In addition, we have the help of language editing to ensure that our manuscripts are presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278654.r002
20 Sep 2022 Decision Letter - LeThanh Ha, Editor PONE-D-22-17876R1Private Large Shareholders, Industrial Policies and Industrial Loans of City Commercial Banks: Evidence from ChinaPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Liu, 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 Nov 04 2022 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, LeThanh Ha Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: The current version is too long by conducting many robustness tests but unintentionally. Please review and make the paper more concise. Authors also should highlight more their contributions and theoretical framework. [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) ******** 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 ****** 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: 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: 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: Dear authors First of all, thank you for all efforts made by your side. I really appreciate your revision. However, I still have minor things that you need to revise. I still do not satisfy with the introduction, specifically, the first paragraph. As per earlier comments: it is important to show the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. One good example is the paper from Graffin et al (2020). Look at their first and second paragraph. Benchmark the way they write the mixed findings. It is not necessarily to have theoretical gap like Graffin et al (2020), you always can show the empirical gap about the mixed findings between the X (independent variable) and Y (dependent variable). Related to hypothesis development, you need to have three hypotheses. Refer to Brambor et al (2006), Balli & Sorensen (2013) and Dawson (2014) for the important to have three hypotheses in the moderating effect study. The first hypothesis is about the relationship between X and Y. The second hypothesis is about the relationship between M and Y. The last hypothesis is about the interaction term. It is up to your research group, whether want to have separate sub-section for second and third hypothesis. The theoretical statement for moderating effect is either: (1)“The positive relationship between X and Y would be strengthened by the moderating effect of M” (2) “The moderating effect of M would strengthen the positive relationship between X and Y” Or, (3) you can do several modifications like what Graffin et al (2020). If you do not want to do DiD approach, you can argue it in the manuscript, and put it as limitation of study in the conclusion. I thought that your earlier version has implication for policymakers and industry, but why I can read it again in this revised version? Add it. I know that PLOSONE will make the final copy-editing, but check again the structure and grammatical errors. For example, “private large shareholders “, “This significantly differs from” (line 41), “differing from” (Line 57), and many more. To be honest, content-wise, your research is okay. However, it is still confusing and takes time to read and understand it. I leave this matter to the associate editor, how they will take action towards this issue. Further, I know it might seem minor, but I do hope the authors really showing effort for the revision and not taking it for granted. References Brambor, T., Clark, W. R., & Golder, M. (2006). Understanding interaction models: Improving empirical analyses. Political analysis, 14(1), 63-82. Balli, H. O., & Sørensen, B. E. (2013). Interaction effects in econometrics. Empirical Economics, 45(1), 583-603. Dawson, J. F. (2014). Moderation in management research: What, why, when, and how. Journal of business and psychology, 29(1), 1-19. Graffin, S. D., Hubbard, T. D., Christensen, D. M., & Lee, E. Y. (2020). The influence of CEO risk tolerance on initial pay packages. Strategic Management Journal, 41(4), 788-811. ****** ******** [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.0278654.r003
Revision 2
10 Oct 2022 Author Response Response to Academic Editor Dear Editor LeThanh Ha, We really appreciate you for your carefulness and conscientiousness. Your suggestions are really valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. According to your suggestions, we have made the following revisions on this manuscript: 1.The current version is too long by conducting many robustness tests but unintentionally. Please review and make the paper more concise. Authors also should highlight more their contributions and theoretical framework. Response 1： We edited the article again to make it more concise. For example, control variables are no longer included in the table of regression results (except Table 4). We have also deleted Table 8 in the original manuscript because its role is similar to Table 7. We have added a paragraph in the introduction (Lines 86-90), which describes more our contributions and enrichment of information asymmetry theory. Response to reviewer #1 Dear Reviewer Rayenda Khresna Brahmana, Thank you again for your recognition of our article. Your suggestion is very helpful to improve the quality of our paper. According to your suggestion, we have made the following modifications to this manuscript: 1.I still do not satisfy with the introduction, specifically, the first paragraph. As per earlier comments: it is important to show the mixed findings between large shareholders and industry loan. One good example is the paper from Graffin et al (2020). Look at their first and second paragraph. Benchmark the way they write the mixed findings. It is not necessarily to have theoretical gap like Graffin et al (2020), you always can show the empirical gap about the mixed findings between the X (independent variable) and Y (dependent variable). Response 1： Your comments are very professional and important. At present, there are not many scholars studying the relationship between large shareholders and industrial loans of banks. This leads us to be unable to effectively summarize the mixed relationship. Fortunately, the relationship between large shareholders and the total scale of bank loans has received some attention. Therefore, we show the mixed findings between them. 2.Related to hypothesis development, you need to have three hypotheses. Refer to Brambor et al (2006), Balli & Sorensen (2013) and Dawson (2014) for the important to have three hypotheses in the moderating effect study. The first hypothesis is about the relationship between X and Y. The second hypothesis is about the relationship between M and Y. The last hypothesis is about the interaction term. It is up to your research group, whether want to have separate sub-section for second and third hypothesis. The theoretical statement for moderating effect is either: (1)“The positive relationship between X and Y would be strengthened by the moderating effect of M” (2) “The moderating effect of M would strengthen the positive relationship between X and Y” Or, (3) you can do several modifications like what Graffin et al (2020). Response 2： We now have three hypotheses in the manuscript based on your suggestion. 3.If you do not want to do DID approach, you can argue it in the manuscript, and put it as limitation of study in the conclusion. Response 3： We explained the reason for not using DID in the manuscript, and took it as our limitation in the conclusion. 4. I thought that your earlier version has implication for policymakers and industry, but why I can read it again in this revised version? Add it. Response 4： We added the inspiration of the paper, which highlights implication for policymakers and industry. 5.I know that PLOSONE will make the final copy-editing, but check again the structure and grammatical errors. For example, “private large shareholders”, “This significantly differs from” (line 41), “differing from” (Line 57), and many more. Response 5： We have dealt with grammar errors again by consulting professionals and our school's English teachers. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278654.r004
22 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - LeThanh Ha, Editor Large Private Shareholders, Industrial Policies and Industrial Loans of City Commercial Banks: Evidence from China PONE-D-22-17876R2 Dear Dr. Jie Liu 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, LeThanh Ha Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278654.r005
Formally Accepted
28 Nov 2022 Acceptance Letter - LeThanh Ha, Editor PONE-D-22-17876R2 Large Private Shareholders, Industrial Policies and Industrial Loans of City Commercial Banks: Evidence from China Dear Dr. Liu: 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. LeThanh Ha Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0278654.r006

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