Following the opportunitist tradition in the study of political business cycles，the paper examines the term-punctuated pattern of infrastructure investments to clarify the de factoterm of office in today’s China. The authors find that without the protection of fixed terms，these officials tend to devote investment to achieving their performance and keep adding to their inputs as long as they stay in office. As a result，the control of the state and superiors over these local cadres tends to be most effective，and so is the role of local governments to promote economic development.