Business experience and local government size: evidence from China.

This article documents the determinants of local government size corresponding with the work experience of political leader. Utilizing the city level data on the size of government and political officials in China, government size is found to be negatively associated with local political leaders' work experience in business. This relationship holds more firmly in poor cities or those with stronger fiscal decentralization. Moreover, we find evidence supporting that both fiscal decentralization and the size of public funded system contribute to the expansion of government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]