Abstract: The standard of unemployment insurance benefits is closely related to employees’ perception of unemployment risks, and studying its impact on corporate investment decisions has important practical value. Based on the practical background of Chinese physical enterprises’ enthusiasm for allocating financial assets, this study empirically tests the impact of unemployment insurance benefits on the structure of corporate financial asset allocation. The results show that unemployment insurance can significantly increase the level of corporate financial asset allocation, meanwhile, it also increase the short-term financial asset allocation driven by the“reservoir”motivation and the long-term financial asset allocation driven by the“investment substitution”motivation. The mechanism testing shows that unemployment insurance benefits can change the investment willingness and preference of enterprises. The increase in investment willingness strengthens the“reservoir”motivation, and the preference for high-yield financial investment strengthens the“investment substitution”motivation. The heterogeneity analysis shows that in companies with higher levels of employee care and higher quality of information disclosure, the promotion effect of unemployment insurance benefits on financial asset allocation is more significant. Furthermore, with the significant increase in unemployment insurance benefits, the motivation for corporate financial asset allocation has shifted from“reservoirs”to“investment substitution”. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation of the economic effects of unemployment insurance should be conducted, and efforts should be made to optimize labor security while improving the quality and efficiency of enterprises.

Key words: unemployment insurance benefits, enterprise financial asset allocation, motivation of reservoir, motivation of investment substitution