Taking the provincial panel data from 2000 to 2016 as samples, this paper uses the systematic GMM method to empirically study the economic development unbalanced effects of central government on local transfer payment. The study finds that: （1） Overall, the effects of central government transfer payment on the imbalance of local economic development is significantly positive, that is, it aggravates the imbalance of local economic development.（2）From a regional perspective, transfer payment significantly reduces the economic development imbalance index in western regions, while the economic development imbalance effect of transfer payment per capita in eastern and central regions is significantly positive.（3）The transfer payment is divided into three categories: general, special and returnable. Further analysis of the impact of different types of transfer payment on regional economic development imbalance shows that general transfer payments significantly reduce the imbalance of economic development. Refundable income has widened the gap in economic development, and there are obvious regional differences in the imbalance effect of economic development of special transfer payments.（4）From the perspective of different types of imbalance index, the central-to-local transfer payments have significantly expanded the intra-group development imbalance in the central region and the imbalance between the groups in the eastern and central regions, narrowed the economic development gap between the central and peripheral cities of the western regions.