Abstract
This paper introduces the sociological concept of Social Trust, empirically studying the influence of Chinese cross provincial levels of social trust on listed company's investment decisions, equity investment types, and the degree of diversification in investments from the micro perspective. Besides, this paper discusses the substitute effects of social trust and government-enterprise relationships on corporate investment decisions. We find that listed companies in provinces with high level social trust have more desire for external investments and are more willing to establish joint ventures with other company. Furthermore, social trust and government-enterprise relationships are mutually substituted in influencing corporate investment decisions. That is, when a company has no government-enterprise relationship, social trust has more influence on corporate investments, and vice versa. Our study has not only enriched the research of social trust in financial area, but also extended current literature to examine social trust and government-enterprise relationships in the interdisciplinary research.