Evaluating the Causal Effects of Emissions Trading Policy on Emission Reductions Based on Nonlinear Difference-In-Difference Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The 1st sentence (lines 17, 18) is not clear. Please rewrite it again, and mention clearly the goal.

Line 24 ~ 27, the sentence is not clear.

Would you consider the punctuation marks!!

For example, put a comma after "However".

Make a space after the full stop.

Line 16 ~ Line 46, is difficult for the audience to understand. Please rewrite it again in one paragraph. It is not necessary to mention other goals not related to this paper.

 

Line 47: "but progress has been slow", How did you know is slow? Where is the reference?

 

The authors should not be a bias against any party, gov, or even their organizations.

 

Line 47 ~ Line 86 is a long paragraph, and it can be 2~3 paragraphs,

Please divide your paragraphs to make them short.

 

In case your introduction is long, you should make another section or subsection.

The introduction should be divided into two parts:

1) Introduction:

2) works of literature review:

Please don't mix.

 

This part, [Line 110: "(limited to data availability, excluding Tibet, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan)"], maybe make a problem, but I recommended removing this part to avoid any effect. Since it is not necessary to be in this article.

Please replace this part: "These are this paper’s potential contributions:..." with

The significance of this work: .... .......

 

Line 188, please rewrite it again.

 

Figure 1 is not precise, please don't put a picture like this. 

Make your figure by Excel or another tool, and export it to this paper. (not picture)

 

Figure 2 is not clear, I couldn't understand it.

 

What is the purpose of Figure 3?

 

Section: Results,

Please rewrite it again technically.

For example, this paper argues to find the answer for about .....

Please don't write the questions as a question themselves.

 

For example: instead, you can write:

"The control variables in the model for empirical analysis after random forest screening: Wage level, .... "

 

Table 3 is not important. Instead, you can explain the SD itself for the variable. What is the number meaning, positive effect or not?

 

Table 4 is the same.

 

Please avoid redundant work.

 

Table 5? why do you choose these percentages, please explain in the paper.

For example, we are going to examine the treatment effects at .... because...

 

Tables 5 and 6, are not necessary to put, but instead, you can explain them.

 

Please rewrite the section: Robustness Check

Explain more the tables 7, 8 and 9

 

The discussion is not clear. 

Again the authors should not be biased.

The discussion should be clearer, and specific, and explain what you found in this paper/results.

 

Technically, the paper should be presented and explained very well. Please rewrite it again.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper examines the heterogeneous causal effects of emissions trading policies on emission reduction.

Major issues:

1. Contents are not well organized and written. e.g. Abstract and conclusion sections.

2. Language should be improved.

3. Some contents are used to describe the nonlinear DID. Is the model developed by others or by you? If by others, why there is no references in the main text?

4. Figures especially figure 1 make me uncomfortable. A scanned figure without any sources?

5. All variables take their initial forms in regression analysis. Is there any part for variable arrangements? If not, how to confirm the effect of each variable on the explained variable is linear? How to confirm variables are at the same order of integration in the regression? And how to avoid spurious issues in random forest method?

Minor issues:

So many minor issues. For example, space is needed after punctuation. E.g. cases in the discussion section.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I appreciate your modification, however, these comments improve the article more.

English language should be improved, there are too many long sentences.

You need to mention references. For example, in line 23, 

you said: "From 1978 to 2019" but I think you get this information from a reference, so where is the reference? A few references should be referred to in the sentences of the introduction part.

The same for all other statements in this article. Please check them one by one and considering you have 33 references, please use the important references. I think these references are suitable but if you want to add a little bit (if you forget) or try to reduce them. (about 25~35 is convient)

Line 11: just remove the words "Research innovation:", it is not necessary.

Page 8, line 305, please remove the white space or move the table.  The table can be on two pages if there is no enough space. Please remove the blank spaces.

Line 342, please move Figure 2 to the previous page. If there is no space, you can adjust the space, or the sentences from Lines 332 ~ 342, can be reduced without losing the idea.

Line 633, use the title "Discussion and conclusion"

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Given by the revised version of this paper, clearly authors spend lots of efforts on this study. Most of the major and minor issues are corrected. Tables and figures are decent now. Informal words are changed to be formal. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf