Land Misallocation and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This paper studies one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing China today: how to sustain its economic growth while simultaneously fight climate change. Although China has made an ambitious statement to reach carbon neutrality in 2060, current trends do not seem to back this promise. The authors of this paper have identified land allocation, or land misallocation to be precise, as a key problem in excessive carbon emission in China in recent years. Driven by economic goals, local governments allocate an excessive amount of lands for industrial use and, in turn, have led to excessive carbon emission.
The methodologies of this study are sounds and well formulated. First, the authors have done control studies to limit the impact of other factors. Second, they utilize "web crawler technology" to retrieve actual land use data instead of use official data published by the government. As we all know, data released by Chinese governmental agencies are highly dubious and hardly unsuitable for rigorous social science studies. The authors are clearly aware of this deficiency so they chose to look for ways to mine actual transaction figures in a bottom-up fashion. This methodology greatly boosts the the reliability and citability of this paper.
Overall, this is an excellent study on a pressing issue. The authors not only studied the problem and analyzed the cause, they also put forward practical suggestions to the government. I anticipate this study will have resonance in both academia and policy-making.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an interesting study. A few comments for your reference:
(1) It is suggested to add a theoretical analysis framework diagram to show the framework and assumptions of the whole research design in the framework diagram, so that readers can better understand the author's research design logic.
(2) The marginal contribution of research needs to be further refined. The current marginal contribution is too redundant and not concise.
(3) The accuracy of the data. The macro statistic data is the data made public by the government and has certain credibility. The author mentioned that he used crawler technology to get some data, which may have some error, because some data will be open to the Internet, and some data will not be open to the Internet. I suggest that the author discuss this issue to some extent in the discussion section.
(4) Research needs to add clear research assumptions. At the same time, in addition to the basic regression hypothesis, these research hypotheses should also be listed together with the mechanism analysis in the following paper. In addition, different regional land allocation and carbon emissions will face different constraints, and the author may need to do some in-depth heterogeneity analysis.
(5) It is a basic respect for the journal and reviewers to arrange the manuscript according to the requirements of the journal. Obviously, I don't feel that respect for this article.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The authors presented an article titled "Land Misallocation and Carbon Emissions: Evidence from China" to be considered for publication in Land.
The subject addressed in the article is within the aim and scope of the journal.
Reading the article, it seems interesting and could be of interest to the readers.
However, at the present point, it is very difficult to follow the article and present a proper revision and comments.
1) Mandatorily, the article must be presented in accordance with the template of the journal. If in any case, the Editor accepts the article without being formatted in accordance with the template, at least the authors must send the article with side numbering. This will help the reviewers to present accurate recommendations.
2) the structure of the article is impossible to follow. Too many subdivisions, An article must follow a traditional subdivision.
Resuming, this can be transformed in an article, but still needs a lot of extra work.
Author Response
We thank the reviewers for their helpful comments, which have allowed us drastically to improve the manuscript. The changes we have incorporated into the document are detailed below. For the sake of clarity, the reviewers’ comments are labeled with a (C), and our responses to those comments are labeled with an (R) to these comments. Please refer to the attachment "responses to reviewers' comments" for detailed modification instructions
Reviewer 3
C1: Mandatorily, the article must be presented in accordance with the template of the journal. If in any case, the Editor accepts the article without being formatted in accordance with the template, at least the authors must send the article with side numbering. This will help the reviewers to present accurate recommendations.
Reply1: Thanks for reviewer’s careful comments. We are very sorry for our careless mistake and inconvenience they caused in your reading. According to the template of the journal. we carefully revise the paper in the following aspects.
First, we have inserted the content of the paper into the template of the journal, so that the article is numbered in rows and easy for experts and editors to review.
Second, we have thoroughly made corrections based on the format of the journal template including abstracts, keywords, the title of the paper at all levels, the body content, and the chart. In order to minimize unnecessary errors during the revision process, we strictly refer to the font form, font size, line spacing, and indentation form etc. in the journal template to revise the paper.
Third, importantly, because references, tables and graphics in the paper were quoted in the form of hyperlinks, so the number of the citations in the article were easy to be garbled or inconsistent on different versions of word software. Therefore, as for reference numbered forms of references and charts cited in the body of the paper, we use manual numbering instead of numbering in the form of hyperlinks.
Sincerely, we apologize once again to reviewers for the carelessness we caused to you in your reading.
C2: The structure of the article is impossible to follow. Too many subdivisions, An article must follow a traditional subdivision.
Reply2: We are so grateful for this constructive suggestion. According to the advice of reviewer, in order to avoid too many subdivisions, we have adjusted the structure of the manuscript with reference to a traditional subdivision.
First, we have condensed and standardized the titles of the third part of the paper concerning model construction and data, such as 3. Model and Data, 3.1. Model Settings.
Second, we have summarized all the parts of the paper involving empirical test results into the fourth part of the “Results and Discussion”, which includes 4.1. Benchmark Regression and Analysis, 4.2. Robustness Test, 4.3. Mechanism Test, and 4.4. Further analysis of the paper.
In summary, the specific structure of the revised paper is shown in the following bold section.
1.Introduction
- Influence Mechanism and Theoretical Hypothesis
2.1. Land Resource Misallocation Affects Carbon Emissions by Hindering the Upgrading of the Industrial Structure
2.2. Land Resource Misallocation Affects Carbon Emissions by Inhibiting Green Innovation and Technological Progress
2.3. Land Resource Misallocation Affects Carbon Emissions by Reducing the Effect of Economic Agglomeration
- Model and Data
3.1. Model Settings
3.2. Variables, Indicators and Data Source
- Results and Discussion
4.1. Benchmark Regression and Analysis
4.2. Robustness Test
4.2.1. Substitution of Core Explanatory Variables
4.2.2. Analysis After Winsorization and Truncation of Outliers
4.2.3. Endogeneity Test
4.3. Mechanism Test
4.4. Further Analysis
4.4.1. Spatial Spillover Effect Test
4.4.2. Heterogeneity Analysis Based on Different City Levels
4.4.3. Heterogeneity Analysis Based on Different Regions
- Conclusion and Policy Suggestions
C3: Moderate English changes required
Reply3: We appreciate the comment! According to expert opinion of reviewers, we have made a careful revision of the statement in the paper (including rewording and rewriting of most sentences), and try to avoid using less authentic statement. We have also invited a native English-speaking colleague to make an intensive editing of language throughout the text, and edited and revised the manuscript to make it more fluent.
Thanks again for your kind suggestion and valuable feedback. Your suggestions have helped us a lot in perfecting the paper. Thank you!
To sum up, we have made a careful and intensive revision of the statement in the paper (including format, content and structure), and try to avoid errors appearing in the article. Please do not hesitate to contact us if there are any question. Thanks again to the reviewers and editors for your hard work! Best wishes to you!
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I have no other comments.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The article has much improved since the first presentation.
Thank you very much for addressing my suggestions.
Minor remarks:
- Figure 1 is very poor. Improve the quality.
- Section 5 must be "Conclusions". The Policy Suggestions should be transferred to the Discussion section.
- Remove Line 1096.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
