Abstract: The sustainability of local government debt at the single body level depends on the gap between budgetary revenues and expenditures, as well as the average cost of debt and the income effects. On this basis, this paper applies the local comprehensive income share which can reflect the scale of development and the bearing capacity for the initial allocation, then it makes use of the debt comprehensive risk factors for the correction, finally, it obtains the sustainability of local government debt of each single subject at the second level. The empirical measurement shows that China’s local government debt is generally sustainable, but there are structural differences in the regional distribution, especially the more backward western regions would exhibit unsustainable debt. The key to solving this problem is to improve the debt income level of the West and the related areas.

Key words: local government debt; sustainability; single subject; debt income level