Development Zones and Their Surrounding Host Cities in China: Isolation and Mutually Beneficial Interactions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Please address the following comments:

• Lines 10-23: the abstract should specifically mention the study area from the beginning and the research methodology (e.g., analysis of secondary data, surveys) employed
• Lines 50-57: what are the reasons identified in the literature for the inefficacy of the DZs to serve the purpose they are intended to 
• Lines 59-60: How rapid was the development of DZs in China since 1984? Some statistics could help
• The authors need to define the frequently used term "new urbanization" and its application in China?
• The Introduction section dwells too much on redundant background information without clearly identifying the knowledge gap this research is trying to fill. 
• In other words, how different is this research from the "few" previous studies that investigated the relationship between DZs and their host cities?
• Lines 124-125: what is the rationale for utilizing the econometric analysis framework in the present study?
• Lines 126-128: What makes total factor productivity (TFP) a "more comprehensive indicator," compared to which indicators or techniques? The authors should indicate the shortcomings of comparative indicators before justifying their preferred one. 
• Lines 137-138: while DZs can be considered "growth poles," I do not think they can be classified as "central areas." 
• Lines 171-174: it is not clear "the city" the authors are referring to
• Lines 185-189: the authors should use the literature to justify the relationship between variables mentioned in the hypotheses
• Lines 192-198: how many DZs are there in China, and what is the justification for a sample size of 46?
• Table 1: what informs the sample distribution according to the three regions (22, 11 & 9), and are these the only regions in China? 
• Lines 200-203: Please justify the use of the Malmquist Index
• Lines 201-203: justify the selection of input and output variables
• Please justify all analytical methods and tests conducted: Panel unit root test, Panel cointegration test, Panel Granger causality test, Panel unit root cointegration, and Impulse response analysis.
• Provide citations to all data sources and fully reference them in the reference list.
• Section 4: the authors should discuss how the results support/corroborate or differ from prior studies and likely explanations 
• Figure 4 is not legible.
• Section 5: there is the need to state the implications of the results for theory, policy, and practice.
• Please highlight the limitations of the study and future research direction.

 

 

Author Response

We are very grateful for having a chance to improve our manuscript “Development zones and their host cities in China: Isolation and mutually beneficial interactions” (Land-1500651). We also appreciate the editors and reviewers who reviewed our research and paid so much patience to our manuscript; the detailed comments and suggestions are very significant and helpful for the authors to improve the research.

 

Based on the comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications to the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are appended below. The detailed information can also be seen in our revised manuscript. Revised portions are marked in red color in the revised paper.

 

Although the authors have carefully improved the paper in accordance with the comments and suggestions, there may still exist some problems and errors in our revised manuscript. We invite the editors and referees to propose more criticisms and suggestions. We also hope the new manuscript will meet Land’s standard with approval.

 

Best regards.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

The Authors.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

General comments:

The paper studying causal interrelationships between SHCs and Development Zones (DZs) is interesting. Abstract is well written. Overall, the whole structure of the paper flows well and the problem/motivation of the study is well justified, supported with a well grounded theoretical framework. For the introduction, some parts of them are rather repetitive in the literature review (theoretical underpinning). Authors are required to refine them.

In terms of methodologies, robust procedural analyses covering TFP, cointegration, and Granger tests have been applied  to reason the interrelationships between SHCs and DZs.

I am thinking whether the title of this study requires to be refined, as HC is not the main subject, instead it should be surrounding HC (SHCs). Please verify.

Another main issue of the study is that authors do not have critcial contextual discussions of those DZs and HCs/SHCs (selected cities) based on the regions. See line 337-391: The current discussions are too generic as to how those facilities and infrastructure of those cities involved provide synergistic support to their DZs?
I feel as though the overall discussion in terms of the context (cities) is lacking. For example, authors need to provide a real/factual situation be it policy, institutional influence that may impact the development as well as spillover effects of cities' DZ. Most explanations are too generic and are without previous literature to support. 

More specific comments:

See line 193: authors need to explain why the specific timeframe, i.e., 2004 to 2018 was chosen?

See line 158: explain what polarisation effects are. Spillover effects are considered positive?

See lines 171-181: The whole passages require more elaborations and  references to support the statements are necessary

Figure 1: i have made comments on it in order to make it clearer. (Please see the attached commented file).

Good luck on your revisions.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

We are very grateful for having a chance to improve our manuscript “Development zones and their host cities in China: Isolation and mutually beneficial interactions” (Land-1500651). We also appreciate the editors and reviewers who reviewed our research and paid so much patience to our manuscript; the detailed comments and suggestions are very significant and helpful for the authors to improve the research.

 

Based on the comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications to the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are appended below. The detailed information can also be seen in our revised manuscript. Revised portions are marked in red color in the revised paper.

 

Although the authors have carefully improved the paper in accordance with the comments and suggestions, there may still exist some problems and errors in our revised manuscript. We invite the editors and referees to propose more criticisms and suggestions. We also hope the new manuscript will meet Land’s standard with approval.

 

Best regards.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

The Authors.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The work has merit. It is well based on the literature review, the methodology is correctly performed. The results are well presented. The conclusions can be improved. The authors should conclude, referring what are the contributions of their work to society in general and to academia in particular.

Author Response

We are very grateful for having a chance to improve our manuscript “Development zones and their host cities in China: Isolation and mutually beneficial interactions” (Land-1500651). We also appreciate the editors and reviewers who reviewed our research and paid so much patience to our manuscript; the detailed comments and suggestions are very significant and helpful for the authors to improve the research.

 

Based on the comments and suggestions, we have made careful modifications to the manuscript. The main corrections in the paper and the responds to the reviewers’ comments are appended below. The detailed information can also be seen in our revised manuscript. Revised portions are marked in red color in the revised paper.

 

Although the authors have carefully improved the paper in accordance with the comments and suggestions, there may still exist some problems and errors in our revised manuscript. We invite the editors and referees to propose more criticisms and suggestions. We also hope the new manuscript will meet Land’s standard with approval.

 

Best regards.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

The Authors.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have adequately responded to my comments. However, some responses to my comments should be in the manuscript. For instance, (1) explanations why some DZ are ineffective (response to comment 2), (2) the statement that China had established a total of 219 national economic and technological development zones as of 2018 (response to comment 11), and (3) the division of China into three regions since 1986 (response to comment 12). These three clarifications should be in the manuscript. 

Reviewer 2 Report

All necessary revisions are sufficiently taken into account.