Abstract: The county government has a strong budgetary authority; its administrative costs have been running at a higher level, even showing a sharp upward trend. The main influencing factors on the higher county government’s administrative costs are reflected in the two aspects of the administrative agency and the system: the factors of the administrative agency including weak cost awareness and regardless of costs, oversize government, insufficient administrative capacity and behavioral preferences of the officials under incorrect performance-orientation; the institutional factors including the budget system, the supervision system and the evaluation system. In order to control the county government’s administrative costs, we should not only perfect the administrative agency, i.e. to improve the officials’ cost awareness and efficiency concept, strictly control the government size, enhance the officials’ administrative capacity, and correct the officials’ behavior preferences on one hand, but also pay attention to the institutional construction, i.e. to improve the budget system, perfect the supervision system, and carry forward the evaluation of government performance on the other hand.

Key words: county government; administrative costs; main influencing factors; institutional factors