The Impact of Local Government Debt on the Carbon Emission Intensity of Energy Consumption in China: An Empirical Study

In 2014, the State Council of China issued the “Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Local Government Debt” (Document No. 43), initiating the standardized reform of local government debt. Since then, the management model and investment direction of local debts have changed significantly, and data disclosure quality has improved. Taking 2022 as the sample ending year balances research timeliness and time span. Therefore, the study period covers 2014–2022.

To avoid selection bias caused by missing non-random data and to ensure comparability across cities and over time, cities are included only if complete information on key variables—local government debt and energy consumption—is available for the entire period. The final dataset contains 2,466 annual observations from 274 Chinese cities. These cities account for over 80% of prefecture-level cities in China and cover eastern, central, and western regions. However, excluding smaller or less-developed cities with incomplete records may introduce potential selection bias. Thus, the findings reflect cities with relatively complete statistical systems rather than all Chinese cities.

Carbon emission data are obtained from the China Urban Construction Statistical Yearbook and the China Urban Statistical Yearbook. Other data come from CSMAR, the China Statistical Yearbook, and Wind. Missing values (3.2%) are handled using linear interpolation with extrapolation.