Resource Constraints and Economic Growth: Empirical Analysis Based on Marine Field

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript needs a conclusion paragraph

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The primary question is: How can marine resource development best achieve economic development?

An implicit larger economic policy question is:  How can transformation of marine resource development achieve equivalent contributions occurring in the general economy?

In approaching these questions,  the authors take a huge sweep across significantly different industries, each with its own fundamental differences in the character of their natural limits of supply.  Bioresources are prone to overexploitation.  Energy resources face absolute limits of supply at different degrees of access.  Navigation resources face competition over limited space. 

These limits are approached with dramatically different institutional regimes.  The first two  depend on regulation of access and intensity.  The third depends on jurisdictional regimes and their enforcement.  All three have huge interaction issues that bring another layer of institutional requirement.

The authors are not explicit about the institutional assumptions of their analysis, but appear to adopt assumptions that all depends on institutions regulating capital access, labor capacity, and technical innovation.

I believe the authors support their conclusions about China's requirements to bring marine resource development to a par with general economic development.  I do not see how their conclusions translate into the specifics of and interactions among their three  classes of industry, nor is there sense of how these then guide the specific strategic choices of allocation in capital, labor, and innovation.  Thus, I am left at a loss in visualizing the mixes and outcomes within the general prescription.

I have not commented upon the methods of the analysis because I don't feel qualified to do so and have confidence in the authors' expertise in this regard. I do note what appears to be a lack of incorporation of the distributive effects of their policies,  among income classes, regions, and nations.  Distribution would seem to be a fundamental variable in the success of any strategy and a heavy consideration in choice among institutional investments.

The framing of the issue is, in my opinion, much too narrow for its scope. Perhaps a better approach to the policy question is to demonstrate the disparity - in capital, labor, technology - between patterns of general development and patterns apparent in the marine industries of interest.

Jeff Romm

Author Response

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Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read the manuscript entitled “Marine Resource Constraints and Marine Economic Growth” which attempts to explore the contribution of marine resources to marine economic growth in China using  panel data  from 2006–2019 across 11  coastal  provinces and  cities. The premise of the study is interesting, the topic of research is worth publishing, and the methods use to analyze the data are sound. Furthermore, the findings are valuable and implications make some sense. Nevertheless, there are numerous shortcomings which the authors need to address before I can recommend the article for final publication. This letter structured according to the manuscript’s structure and my revision requests for each section are listed below:

Introduction

·        Although the introduction section gives a broad overview of the ocean's significance for economic growth, it lacks specific examples and information to back up the claims.

·        The "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" initiative and the 2021 China Marine Economy Statistical Bulletin are mentioned in the section, but no explanation is provided as to how they relate to the overall subject of the paper or the research being done.

Literature Review

·        Give a concise summary of the literature on this subject, highlighting the key conclusions and any research gaps.

·        Describe how the issues of climate change, marine environment damage, and the depletion of marine resources are related to the overall theme of the paper and the research being done.

·        Describe how the marine economy and capital inflows are related, and how this relationship relates to the rest of the literature review.

·        Authors need to add more generalized literature review on climate, water use and its implications for the agriculture and environment. To this end, please cite the following studies in the literature review:

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.02.266

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.1016/j.technovation.2021.102255

https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su11174663

Model, data and variables

·        Explain the methods used to collect the data for the equation and operationalize the variables.

·        Please describe the process used to group marine resources into the major industries.

·        How was the entropy value method used? Why was it chosen over other techniques?

·        Please provide details on the variables MR, MC, ML, and MT's measurement and data collection methods.

·        Please justify how the researcher ensured that problems like overexploitation weren't present during the data collection or analysis.

Empirical Analysis

·        First, this heading should be changed to “Results and Discussion” as there is no separate discussion section in the paper.

·        Explain the models used in the analysis in detail, including the variables and their meanings.

·        Describe the reasons why some coefficients are significant and others are not.

·        Give a more thorough explanation of the findings, focusing on the reasons why certain industries have larger coefficients than others.

·        Give a more thorough explanation of the study's limitations.

·        Explain the R-squared and F-statistics values and how they affect the models in more detail.

·        Describe the effects of additional, not included in this analysis, factors on the expansion of the marine economy.

·        Finally, please compare the results with existing studies.

Conclusion

·        The main conclusions and how they relate to the research question and objectives should be summarized in the conclusion.

·        More concrete and specific policy recommendations should be made, along with explanations of how they would address the problems found in the study.

·        The study ought to talk about its limitations and possible future research lines.

·        The generalizability of the findings to other areas or nations should be taken into account in the conclusion.

·        The study's application should be discussed in the conclusion as well.

·        The conclusion needs to be more focused and succinct, avoiding repetition.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the authors' improvements on the original manuscript.  They move my review conclusion to 'publishable' with minor changes.  The one change I strongly recommend is clarified uses of the term 'resources.'  This is used with different meanings, often in the same paragraph or sentence.  Given the 'water' orientation of the readership, it is important to be clear about meaning to avoid reader difficulties and substitutio of their interpretation of the authors'.

Thus, 'resource is used to define products, e.g fish, oil, transport pathways; environments of production, eg. ecosystem dynamics, seabed structures and processes, transportation traffic; and production inputs, e.g capital, labor, institutional frameworks.  I have read the article three times without being able to overcome the ambiguities of meaning in  different contexts.  This one problem makes for difficult reading, confused interpretations, and weakened influence, despite the structural and empirical soundness of the analysis.

Jeff Romm

Author Response

Thanks for your comments. Resources are different in different sections. in primary industry, resource stands for Marine fishing production, mariculture production; in secondary industry, which stands for Marine crude oil, marine natural gas, sea salt, marine chemical, and marine mining production; in tertiary industry, which stands for Marine transportation volume. 

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors took all comments positively and made appropriate revisions in this version. As a result, the quality of manuscript has substantially improved. I am please to recommend the publication of this article. 

Author Response

Thanks very much