Are Knowledge-Intensive Services an Urban Growth Factor in the Global Periphery? (Un)Fulfilled Possibilities in the Large Metropolitan Areas of Mexico
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The topic of the paper is interesting and the connection to the relevant literature is appropriate. The paper is well written and the conclusions are important. Although the empirical application is merely descriptive, I find it coherent.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Point 1. The topic of the paper is interesting and the connection to the relevant literature is appropriate. The paper is well written and the conclusions are important. Although the empirical application is merely descriptive, I find it coherent.
Response 1. We appreciate the time spent reviewing our work and your comments. We have made some minor adjustments to make our contributions explicit and have a more analytical focus.
Best regards,
Boris Graizbord & Luis Enrique Santiago
Authors.
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments:
- Your central hypothesis argues that KIS reach the highest productivity levels in the larger metropolitan areas. And you expect “paradoxes.” Accordingly, I think that the essence of this paper is from line 281 to line 292.
- I cannot exactly understand how we obtain the numbers at parentheses neither in Figure 3 (A) nor Table 1-A in Appendix.
- I cannot explicitly find paradoxes at section 4.2.
I think that almost all cases of the productivity in 4 metropolitans and MCMA are higher than the county’s value.
- Your abstract claims that results show unexpected paradoxes in terms of KIS category via a via their location and growth performance in the four larger metropolitan areas.
- In section 5, the conclusion had better mention about paradoxes and compare with those of preceding studies by making clear the contribution of this paper.
- I can understand MCMA is a larger metropolitan area. But, compared with MCMA, are the others are so? (Even Guadalajara is not so large?) Your logic on the paradox will be changed if they are not.
- I hope the paper becomes very clear to understand your logic.
- Your contribution to the paradoxes should be clear by referencing preceding studies on the paradoxes.
- Minor point: spell check: line 363 or others (?).
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We appreciate the time spent reviewing our work and your comments. We have made some minor adjustments to make our contributions explicit and have a more analytical focus. Below we briefly expose the adjustments we have made trying to respond to your comments.
Point 1. Your central hypothesis argues that KIS reach the highest productivity levels in the larger metropolitan areas. And you expect “paradoxes.” Accordingly, I think that the essence of this paper is from line 281 to line 292.
I cannot exactly understand how we obtain the numbers at parentheses neither in Figure 3 (A) nor Table 1-A in Appendix.
I cannot explicitly find paradoxes at section 4.2.
I think that almost all cases of the productivity in 4 metropolitans and MCMA are higher than the county’s value.
Response 1. The data presented in Figure 3 and Table 1-A were expressed in thousands of Mexican pesos and in the text in millions of Mexican pesos. We have corrected the figure and table to present the data in millions. We have done the same for figure 4 and Table 2-A.
We consider that there are two paradoxes of the KIS in the four larger metropolitan areas: i) although KIS have high levels of productivity, their salary levels are lower than the national median, especially KIS-synthetic and symbolic categories (only this is not the case in MCMA); and, ii) the gap in productivity and wages between KIS and NKIS has narrowed (lines 373-380). We have made them explicit in the introduction (lines 63-68) and in the final part of section 4 (lines 373-380). We have also clarified it in section 5 (lines 400-417).
Point 2. Your abstract claims that results show unexpected paradoxes in terms of KIS category via a via their location and growth performance in the four larger metropolitan areas.
Response 2. We consider that with the adjustments indicated in the previous answer, we clarify the paradoxes that we have found in the case of KIS in the four larger metropolitan areas of Mexico.
Point 3. Your contribution to the paradoxes should be clear by referencing preceding studies on the paradoxes.
Response 3. We have added two bibliographic references on paradoxes in the knowledge economy, which we consider allow us to define what we understand by paradoxes in our work (lines 63-68). Reference: 24 and 25 (lines 536-539)
Point 4. Minor point: spell check: line 363 or others (?).
Response 4. We could not identify the error. We sincerely apologize.
Please see the attachment to our settings.
We hope that we have adequately responded to your observations. Once again, we appreciate your interest in our work.
Best regard,
Boris Graizbord & Luis Enrique Santiago
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
