In recent years, the real economy, especially the manufacturing sector, faces a dual impact of macroeconomic downturn and overcapacity, which leads to a gradual decline in its traditional competitive advantage while the financial industry rapidly expands. Many firms turn to invest in financial assets to seek new profit opportunities, gradually diverting resources from the healthy growth of core operations. Such risk accumulation hampers the progress of China’s high-quality economic development. Therefore, it is crucial to explore the driving factors behind corporate financial asset investment and understand its true motivation from a more diverse perspective.

Using the data of A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2018, this paper constructs a DID model based on the enactment of Social Insurance Law (SIL) in 2011 as a quasi-natural experiment, and examines the impact of labor protection on corporate financial asset investment. The study finds that the implementation of SIL significantly improves the level of corporate financial asset investment. Mechanism testing shows that the implementation of SIL intensifies the financing constraints of firms, and firms, motivated by prevention, increase their holdings of short-term financial assets to supplement liquidity. Heterogeneity analysis finds that for state-owned firms and firms with strong tax collection and management in their respective regions, the implementation of SIL has a more significant inducing effect on their holding of financial assets. Specifically, economic consequence analysis finds that financial asset investment conducted by firms for precautionary savings does not take into account the efficiency of financial asset investment.

This paper has the following contributions: (1) It expands the cross research between labor protection and corporate finance, supplementing the research gap on the economic consequences of corporate financial asset investment. (2) It enriches the research on the influencing factors of corporate financial asset investment, expanding the relevant research on corporate financial asset investment decision-making to the scope of labor economics. (3) Based on the precautionary savings theory, it analyzes the driving forces and internal mechanisms behind corporate asset allocation behavior after the implementation of SIL, providing further evidence for the current academic debate on the true motivation of corporate financial assets. This paper emphasizes that while implementing labor protection measures, attention should be paid to guarding against excessive allocation of financial assets by firm and improving decision-making ability.