Abstract: Taking the provincial panel data from 2007 to 2016 as the sample, this paper conducts an empirical analysis of the relationship between the local government debt and China’s economic growth with the threshold model. The findings show that the local debt has a significant threshold effect on China’s economy, and there exists only one threshold value. When the level of the local debt is lower than this threshold value, it has a positive effect on the economic growth; once it exceeds the threshold value, the economic growth would be restrained. At the same time, compared with the advanced regions, the local debt of those underdeveloped regions has an even more significant and stronger impact on the promotion of the economic growth, and the threshold value is also higher. Once the local government debt goes beyond the threshold value, its negative impact on economic growth is also more obvious in the economically underdeveloped regions. Therefore, the economic growth mode of“to promote economic growth with debt”is not sustainable. Instead, the local governments should take adequate considerations of the regional conditions, control the local debt according to the circumstances, establish a local debt control and risk prevention mechanism which is suitable for Chinese conditions, promote the existing debt replacement, and strengthen the checking and disclosure of the local debt information.

Key words: local government debt; local debt; economic growth; threshold effect