The Dark Matter of Bilateral Preferential Margins: An Assessment of the Effect of US Tariffs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This paper aims to quantify the impact of US trade policy on US imports. This is, I believe, an old topic. Moreover, this paper's research method (Structural Gravity Model) is also old. Because this paper discusses an old topic, I hope the author can clearly demonstrate the article's value, necessity, and innovation. In addition, this paper does not make full use of the literature.

 

1. The Abstract of this article is unsuccessful. The content of this part is only a simple description, which is not enough. A successful abstract should include ‘Purpose’, ‘Research design, data, and methodology’, and ‘Results’. Meanwhile, keywords do not show up in the Abstract.
2. In the introduction, Line 52: “The literature argues that…”. What literature? In this section, the author mentioned the research value of this paper, but this value is relatively weak in comparison with the existing literature. This section should include an outline of the paper's structure. To supplement the first paragraph, more information on US trade policies and imports should be included.
3. The author only simply show that bilateral tariff margins have very different impacts across sectors in Table 2. Can the author explain why these differences exist?
4. In the conclusion, the author only mentions the paper's findings. Contributions, implications, limitations, and future directions should all be considered.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

I like the paper. Some modifications for style and language could be effective to improve the overall quality of the paper. Aims and scope of the article should be clarified a bit more. Literature review is wide enough, although a further enrichment is still possible. I think that a commentary is the better presentation mode for this paper. I appreciate the broad perspective of the article, the authors demonstrate to be strongly confident with such literature. Thank you.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I have carefully reread this manuscript many times. Although it has improved, there are still some issues that cannot be ignored.

 

1. Every word of the Abstract is very valuable, and it is also the fastest way for readers to understand this article. I don't know why the authors describe the research background at such length. (Line 8-Line13). A brief background description is enough. The specific research background should be shown in the Introduction rather than the Abstract. Meanwhile, I can't understand why the authors put their contribution in the abstract. It should be more reasonable to put the contribution in the Conclusion. I hope the authors will emphasize the results of this paper. It is easier for readers to understand this article via the abstract.

 

2. The introduction lacks logic and coherence. Paragraph 1 focuses on the engagement of U.S. in the developing countries' economic activities. Paragraph 2 focuses on some activities related to trade agreements. Paragraph 3 focuses on the gravity model. Paragraph 4 focuses on Exhaustive reviews of existing preferential trade agreements,.... I hope the authors rewrite the Introduction according to logic rather than dispersion.

 

3. Literature review: The authors have added a lot of literature, which is commendable. A Literature Review does not put the relevant literature together. I hope the authors analyze the literature according to a certain logic. Then, according to the analysis of the existing literature, the differences and innovations described in this paper are presented.

 

4. As for section 4 (Econometric Results: Elasticities of substitutions across exporters by sections), from Table 2 to Table 3, the authors only simply describe the statistical results. I hope the author can further explain these results, such as the reasons for this statistical results.

 

5. As for the Conclusion, the authors have changed a lot, which is worthy of affirmation. However, I feel a little confused. The results or findings of this paper is more appropriate in front of the contributions of this paper.

 

Minor issue:

1. The first letter of the Keywords should be lowercase.
2. Keywords does not show up in the content of Abstract.
3. Line 247 “1. Econometric approach” is wrong. It should be “3.1. Econometric approach”
4. There are two same sections titled “3.” There are “The bilateral tariff margin and trade elasticities: theory ”and “3. Data”.

 

Good luck.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

In general, this article has improved a lot.