Digital Inclusive Finance and Family Wealth: Evidence from LightGBM Approach

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Originality: There is a need to revise the paper title, and the current title does not portray the actual meaning of the paper. 

Abstract: The abstract is not well written. There is a need to revise with explicit contents of the abstract, i.e., the main issue, sampling, methods, results, and implications. The author(s) should provide a precise and focused abstract

• As a suggestion for improvement, the author(s) should not use the same Keywords as like Paper Title. It is encouraged to use different keywords which are not in the Paper title. It will enhance paper searchability after publication. 

Introduction:

The introduction section is not well written. There are ambiguous statements and no clarity in the introduction section.

·         There is no roadmap at the end of the introduction that conveys the structure of the rest of the paper.

·         The introduction section is not started with a broader area and issue or in a global context. Therefore, there is no synthesis in writing an introduction section.

• There is less debate on the targeted country's problem. Therefore, it will be a more valuable addition to the paper if the author(s) explain some statistics, figures, and recent issues.
• In the Introduction section, brief discussions of methods, tools, sampling, and findings are missing.

Relationship to Literature: The paper did not incorporate major literature on Digital Inclusive Finance, and the paper does not sufficiently cover recent research in the area. This would be helpful to include relevant research recently covered in top journals of similar scope. Further, work needs to be done to support the findings based on the current literature, as a recent theory in the area directly contradicts what was found.

·         There is a need to add more critical recent literature and based on theoretical argumentation.

• Author(s) did not use any underpinning theory to justify this research. Although this is the major concern of this paper, the author(s) should highlight how this research contributes to the theory or contribution of the theory. Unfortunately, the author(s) did not discuss much using developed theories in this area.
•  

Results: The analysis is clearly provided to tie up with the findings.

 

• The author(s) should provide complete statistical analysis, i.e., skewness and kurtosis.
•  

Discussion and findings: As results are clearly provided. However, there is no solid discussion on the results.

• The author(s) should discuss the limitations of this study and future research direction in a constructive way. Hence, the author(s) should write in prices and in a constructive way under a subsection of discussion.
• The author(s) did not discuss the theoretical and practical contribution of this study. Therefore, the author(s) should discuss this study's theoretical and practical contribution in the separate subsection under discussion for more clarity.

 

Conclusion: Author(s) should provide concluding statements rather than repetitive statements in the conclusion portion.

•         It is highly recommended to write the conclusion section separately from the discussion of the findings.

·         The reviewer found that the author(s) has cited only a few recently published papers in this article (Most of the cited articles are ten years old). As a suggestion, the author(s) must cite new articles (latest literature) to make a holistic discussion and sturdy paper with high readability

 

Quality of Communication: The paper needs further proofreading. I have tried to read the paper constructively, but I felt it suffers from poor writing. I, therefore, request the author(s) to pass the manuscript for professional proofreading. I suggest a more careful investigation of prior literature can make this paper distinguishable. Linking this article with prior studies does not seem sufficient, which weakens the justification of incremental contributions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

These are the most important comments that I consider necessary to be incorporated in the document:

1. I recommend that the Abstract should be reorganized. Also, I recommend that it should be corrected to provide more fluency in English.

In a single phrase, the authors present the context, what they do and how they do it. Hence, you tend to get lost in the ‘story’. I recommend to better draft the Abstract. It should describe clearer the context. Afterwards, it should present the aim. Then it should describe the methodology and afterwards the expected results. The method should be briefly described without getting into too much technical details.   

2. With regard to the Introduction section: I appreciate the authors describing the context of the research. But they stop here. I believe that it should be followed by: aim of the paper, research questions, hypotheses, brief description of the methodology and novelty of the paper. How is this research contributing to the existing strand of literature? What exactly you do better than the existing works?

3. With regard to the Literature review section, I appreciate the authors splitting the existing works into the three sections. But, you need to do a better job in explaining what previous studies have done and what they have not done, and how your study is different in this respect. Studying the literature should not consist only in listing the papers with just a rudimentary idea.

For example, on page 2:
[MENG (2014) demonstrated a significant positive effect between cognitive ability as a proxy for word literacy and mathematical proficiency and family asset allocation]. COULD BE FOLLOWED BY {In this respect we believe that……}
[Johnston et al. (2016) proposed that mental health is more likely than physical health to explain the allocation of financial decisions, which affects family wealth]. COULD BE FOLLOWED BY {We also agree with this, but from our point of view….}
[Biljanovska and Palligkinis (2018) verified that individual 's self-control ability shows a positive relationship with the size of family wealth]. COULD BE FOLLOWED BY {With respect to this authors, our opinion is that it should/could/might ….}
[HU (2018) argue that the accumulation of family wealth can be reflected by the interaction of financial literacy and education level.] COULD BE FOLLOWED BY {This paper unfortunately does not consider …}

4. I recommend moving Table 1 in the Annex. It is to basic.

5. I consider 3.2. Variable Definition to be too superficial. Here, you should detail the expected influence of the variables.

6. With regard to the Conclusion section, the authors should better delimitate the main takeaways of the paper. All the information is presented in a single text block that is tot so easy to follow, from line 500 till line 530. Moreover, the author should work more on the story of the results. I understand the statistical significance of the results, but the socio-economic implications lack from this interpretation.

For example, […Third, … finds that the digital inclusive finance index, the breadth of coverage and the depth of use sub-index all show a significant positive relationship with family wealth, while the degree of digitalization has a negative impact, indicating that there is a "digital divide" phenomenon]. In other words: […. show a significant positive relationship with…, while … has a negative impact…] Where is the story? Where are the implications, the effects? There is none.

7. There are many mistakes and oversights existing in the text (and English misspellings).

To give an example, this is only from the Conclusion section:
line 502 [finance, and is an important] instead of [finance, and also an important]
line 512 [of all ,overall, the] instead of [of all, overall, the]
line 511-517 – the first result is incorporated within a very long phrase; you can overlook how it begins, till you get to the end of the phrase.
line 517 [patterns; Second] instead of [patterns. Second]

7. With regard to the Reference section, for a paper that wants to be published in “Sustainability”, I am sure that the authors have previously checked the other papers published in this journal and could refer to some of these.

In addition, I do not understand why some of the authors are written in a way (ZHOU, T.Y., & CHEN M.X.) while others in another way (Stein, L.C.D., & Yannelis, C.), and even combinations of them (ZHANG, Q., & Posso, A.). And sometimes there are even extras spaces through there. And where are DOI? Please rewrite these. The reference section is the business card of every article.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors, 

Thank you for incorporating the said comments. 

Reviewer 2 Report

I appreciate the effort made by the author to tackle all my suggestions. I believe that this version of the paper is considerably improved. Overall, the paper is ready to be published. In addition, I would like to highlight the following: check all your references again! It is very important to have your references updated and correctly written (there are some in different font and other underlined).