Research on Green Supply Chain Formation and Government Subsidy Pricing Strategy Considering an Online Trading Platform

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 2)

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the reply, some spelling/grammar issues left:

 line 278 when an/the enterprise 

 line 279 with an/the enterprise

line 555 Comparing Figure 6 (with ?)

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the reply, some spelling/grammar issues left:

 line 278 when an/the enterprise 

 line 279 with an/the enterprise

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for taking the time to review this manuscript and constructive suggestions. We have corrected these spelling errors and grammatical errors based on your feedback, and checked and corrected other errors in the article, including the use of articles and other issues. The revisions are highlighted in the revised manuscript for your reference.

I appreciate your time and expertise in reviewing my work. If you have any further suggestions or require additional revisions, please feel free to let me know.

Sincerely, 

Wentao Gao

Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)

Research summary:

The authors have constructed a Stackelberg game model involving a supplier and a manufacturer in the context of low-carbon production and government subsidies. They analyzed the impact of an online trading platform on supply chain profits, considering the accuracy of the platform's authentication service, and found that green supply chain coordination is facilitated by the platform, leading to reduced government subsidies and higher optimal emission reduction levels for enterprises. Overall, this paper is very well written and provides intriguing findings. However, it is important to acknowledge that there are a few minor limitations that could be addressed to further enhance the quality of this research.

I have listed my concerns below.

·         The novelties of the proposed research are not obvious compared to the existing studies. Therefore, authors are advised to provide a comparison table mentioning the specific contributions of this research. This table should offer a concise yet comprehensive analysis and summary of the existing research, facilitating a clear and tangible understanding of how this study contributes to the existing literature. By incorporating such a comparative analysis, the contribution of this research to the field would be greatly enhanced, while also providing readers with a streamlined and accessible means of comprehending the study's significance.

·         The inclusion of a separate section that thoroughly discusses the overall research findings can significantly enhance reader comprehension

·         Incorporating a dedicated section that explores the implications of the research findings for managers can offer valuable insights and guidance for decision-makers in practical contexts.

Rest is fine.

Minor editing of English language required

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for the insightful comments on our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript according to the suggestions.

In response to Comment 1, we have added a literature comparison table in the Section 2 Literature Review to highlight the main contributions of our study.

Regarding Comments 2 and 3, we originally provided some managerial implications following the analysis results in Section 5 Numerical Analysis. In the revised manuscript, we have added a new paragraph at the end of Section 6 Conclusions and Future Research to further discuss the research findings and provide managerial insights. Specifically, we elaborate on how our results can inform real-world decision makers and guide practice.

We believe these changes have strengthened our manuscript considerably. The revisions are highlighted in the revised manuscript for your reference.

Thank you again for your valuable feedback and consideration of our work. We look forward to your decision on our revised manuscript.

Sincerely, 

Wentao Gao

Reviewer 3 Report (New Reviewer)

Review of the Manuscript Sustainability-2580279/11.09.2023 „ Research on Green Supply Chain Formation and Government Subsidy Pricing Strategy Considering the Online Trading Platform” for the Sustainability Journal.

General Comments

From my point of view, it is a very interesting topic and simultaneously it seems that to the best of my knowledge is the first empirical research examine the payoff matrix for supply chain members when choosing between low-carbon and traditional production. The results find that: In the green supply chain increases first and then decreases; The online trading platform is conducive to achieving green supply chain coordination; When the authentication mechanism of the platform is imperfect, the authentication fee of the platform and the subsidy coefficient of the government need to be set within a reasonable range to avoid the enterprise adopting traditional production pretending to be the low-carbon type. The paper consists of following sections: Introduction, Literature Review, Model Hypotheses and Notations, Model Description and Analysis, Numerical analysis, Conclusions and Future Research.

However, I find some recommendations:

1.      The abstract must contain the main purpose of the paper, the research method used in the research and the main contributions.

2.      It would be very useful to add in the "Introduction" section the purpose, objectives and hypothesis of the research.

3.      We consider that the introduction should specify the novelty of the paper compared to other papers published in this area.

4. It is very important for the authors to analyze the correlation between the variables and to explain the number of items taken into account both in the descriptive analysis (with Kurtosis test, Jarque Berra test and interpretation, Skewness and Kurtosis interpretation) and in the correlation analysis.

5. In the same time, in the Model Description and Analysis  section the authors have to apply an econometric method like regression or panel with fixed effect estimation or the random effect estimation (see for instance, Baltagi (2008), Hsiao (2014) and Andre B et al. (2015)). Besides, the corresponding tests to determine which is the best method of estimation is needed (see the Hausman test, the Breusch and Pagan (1980)´s Lagrange multiplier, the F test for fixed effects to test whether all unobservable individual effects are zero).

6.The authors talk about the relationship between these variables, however they do not support the empirical evidence providing panel cointegration tests that are crucial (see for instance Kao (1999) panel data cointegration test, the Pedroni (1999, 2004) panel data cointegration test or the Westerlund (2005) panel data cointegration test, among others).

7. I think that descriptive perspective is crucial to understand the context of the problem to be analyzed.

8. We consider that the correlation analysis and the VIF test are very important in this research.

9.Also,  we consider that in the econometric research, it is important to use GMM method or 2SLS method and that is why we consider the literature is not enough and we recommend the authors to refer to other recent works indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, Emerald and Cambrige. We suggest that the authors cite papers indexed in Web of Science Journals, such as:

1.      Batrancea, L.; Pop, M.C.; Rathnaswamy, M.M.; Batrancea, I.; Rus, M.-I. An Empirical Investigation on the Transition Process toward a Green Economy. Sustainability 2021, 13, 13151. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132313151

2.      Omar H. Al-Sakaf,Application possibilities of solar thermal power plants in Arab countries, Renewable Energy, Volume 14, Issues 1–4, 1998, Pages 1-9, ISSN 0960-1481, https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/S0960-1481(98)00039-1.

3.      Hasraddin Guliyev, Ferda Yerdelen Tatoğlu, The relationship between renewable energy and economic growth in European countries: Evidence from panel data model with sharp and smooth changes, Renewable Energy Focus, Volume 46, 2023, Pages 185-196, ISSN 1755-0084, https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.ref.2023.06.005.

4.      Batrancea, L.M.; Tulai, H. Thriving or Surviving in the Energy Industry: Lessons on Energy Production from the European Economies. Energies 2022, 15(22), 8532. https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en15228532.

In conclusion, the paper should be change based on the recommendations made above. It should also be enhanced with a review of the literature adequate to the subject and a broader interpretation and commentary of the research results.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for the insightful comments on our manuscript. We have revised the manuscript according to your valuable feedback.

In response to Comment 1, we have adjusted the sentences in the abstract related to the research objectives and methodology. We have also added a sentence in the abstract to clarify the main contributions of our study.

As suggested in Comment 2, we have added content in the Section 1 Introduction to state the research objectives and goals. The hypotheses are now presented in Section 3.

In response to Comment 3, we have added a comparison table in Section 2 Literature Review to highlight the innovations of our study.

For Comments 4-9, we sincerely appreciate the reviewer's suggestions regarding panel cointegration tests, correlation analysis, kurtosis tests, etc. However, our study examines government and platform decisions in green supply chain and low-carbon manufacturing from a management perspective using game theory tools, rather than investigating economic relationships between participants as in econometrics. Still, we have considered the literature suggested by the reviewer and incorporated it into our literature review.

Regarding the comments on English language quality, we have identified and corrected the grammatical errors indicated. Thank you for pointing these out.

We believe these changes have strengthened our manuscript considerably. The revisions are highlighted in the revised manuscript for your reference.

We sincerely appreciate your valuable comments and insightful suggestions again. If you have any further suggestions or require additional revisions, please feel free to let me know. We look forward to your decision on our revised manuscript.

Sincerely, 

Wentao Gao

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors, I would like to make some suggestions on the manuscript.

For the following paragraph, I could not find the sources:

"China aims to reach its carbon dioxide emissions peak before 2030 and strives to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. In 2021, the Council of the European Union passed the "European Climate Law", turning the commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 into a legally enforceable constraint. In March 2023, the European Commission published the "Net Zero Industry Act"."

In case of long equations extending over multiple lines, please make clear the signs at the end of the line and at the beginning of it (e.g. minus sign)

in line 518 "For the secondary supply chain" do you mean secondary or two-level?

In line 541 there is a typo "increase their reduction. row level."

Please make clear who "they" are:

"Government subsidies to enterprises are often more effective incentives [5]. For enterprises, they are also actively implementing low-carbon measures." 

Minor editing of the English language is required for the whole text.

Reviewer 3 Report

i found it is a manuscript that approriate for our journal. the whole paper is well constructured and the model proposed in the paper is suit for the problem discussed in the manuscript.

after minor revision, i suggest to receive this mansucript.

(1) some important litereature is not mentioned in the review part.

(2) typoes still existed in the manuscript.

(3) I suggest authors can move their prove process in appendix or online, and the title of subsection 3 and subsection 4 shuold be changed to show the basic logic of thsi manuscript.

minor language proofreading is needed