关键词: 地方债务 , 官员特征 , 政治关联 , 政治俘获 , 省委书记

Abstract: This paper investigates mechanisms that provincial main leaders motivation and behavior which influence local government debt scale for the first time,from four dimensions such as official incentives,work experience,political connections and elite capture,by using government debt data of 30 provincial administrative units in 2012 and 2013,and local officials resumeWe find that when provincial party secretaries are elder,age is positively related to local government debt scale,and their economic incentives are bigger than political promotion incentivesOn the contrary,when provincial party secretaries are younger,age is negatively related to local government debt scaleProvincial party secretaries with economic work experiences tend to expand the scale of government debtPolitical connections between provincial party secretaries and central government will affect local government debt scale,depending on the tradeoff between “following effects” and “preferential effects”When “following effects” are bigger than “preferential effects”,the strength of political connections is negatively related to local government debt scale,and vice versaWhats more,the greater elite capture pressure faced by provincial party secretaries,the smaller local government debt scaleOur finds have important policy implications for the understanding and prevention of local government debts issues

Key words: local government debt , characteristics of officials , political connections , elite capture , provincial party secretaries