Abstract: The problem of excessive leverage would bring major risks to China’s continued economic growth, so proper de-leveraging has become an urgent matter. This paper employs the theory of economic growth to explain the motive of the main market players in exercising excessive leverage as the Ponzi Game, by which to explore the proposition of“the problem of excessive leverage is a problem of resource mismatch, which is triggered by the influence of the transitions and changes of the economic growth models”. In order to analyze the possibility of the generation of excessive leverage under different models, the Ramsey model, the learning by doing Arrow model and the Romer knowledge spillover model are introduced. The findings show that the old growth mode with the exogenous technology progress as the characteristics and the new growth mode with the endogenous technology accumulation as the characteristics will both restrain excessive leverage spontaneously, however, the transition stage of the growth mode with the coexistence of the old and new economic sectors as the characteristics may produce capital interest margin as an important incentive to trigger excessive leverage, and the restricted factor flow between different economic components and the information asymmetry have exacerbated this mechanism.

Key words: excessive leverage; Ponzi Game; economic growth model; government governance