Abstract: Basing on the upper echelon theory and psychological theory, and taking A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2019 as research sample, this paper studies the impact of executives' famine experience on corporates debt default. The paper finds that executives' famine experience make them pay more attention to their hard won achievements and reputation, and make their debt decision-making behavior more conservative and cautious, thus the possibility of corporate debt default is lower. The above phenomenon is more significant in corporates with low level of internal control and in areas with poor legal environment. Further research shows that after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the corporates with famine experience are less likely to default on their debts, and that the ratio of borrowing new to repay the old is smaller in the enterprises with famine experience executives. Therefore, banks and other financial institutions should pay attention to non-financial information such as executives' experience when making credit decisions.

Key words: corporate executives, famine experience, debt default, internal control, legal environment