Abstract: Based on the data of 13848 samples of 1154 A-share listed companies in China from 2007 to 2018, this paper explores the influence of social security contribution rate on short-term and long-term performance of companies and its transmission mechanism from theoretical analysis and empirical research.The results show that there is a significant negative correlation between the actual social security payment rate and the short-term performance of the company, and a significant positive correlation between the actual social security payment rate and the long-term performance of the company. Further analysis shows that the actual contribution rate of social security has three channels:employee incentive effect, factor substitution effect and labor cost effect, among which employee incentive effect is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises and high human capital enterprises;factor substitution effect is more significant in labor-intensive enterprises and enterprises with higher degree of financing constraints;The labor cost effect channel is more significant in manufacturing enterprises and small and mediumsized enterprises.In addition, this paper also finds that there is a negative correlation between corporate life cycle and corporate performance. The longer the corporate life cycle is, the worse the corporate performance is.This study reveals the positive effect of social security payment on corporate performance, and calls on enterprises to actively fulfill social security payment and comply with it for a long time.

Key words: Social Insurance Policy, Endowment Insurance, Actual Social Security Payment Rate, Corporate Performance, Panel Fixed Effect