This paper analyzes the recent fiscal crisis among villages in the city of Dongguan. The city has been an exemplar of export-oriented growth in China. Rapid economic development has been attributed to local state entrepreneurial governance based on a close relationship between the local state and enterprises. However, this development approach has led to a severe fiscal crisis, especially at the village level, due to declining rental incomes, ineffective village governance and a heavy burden of public service expenditure following the global financial crisis. This paper examines the configuration of local governance and how an economic crisis has evolved into a public finance crisis in the city. Until now the limits of entrepreneurial governance have been understood only with regard to negative social impacts. This paper reveals the limits of a developmental approach
